THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT 

From  the  Library  of 

Henry  Goldman,  Ph.D. 

1886-1972 


SHORT  STUDIES 


GREAT    SUBJECTS. 


SHORT    STUDIES 


ON 


GREAT    SUBJECTS. 


BY 

JAMES   ANTHONY   FROUDE,   M.A. 

t*T«  m.u/w  Of  EXKTEB  COLLEGE,  OXFORD. 


NEW   YORK: 
CHARLES   SCRTBNER   AND   COMPANY 

1871. 


CONTENTS. 


THE  SCIENCE:  OF  HISTORY .7 

TIMES  OF  ERASMUS  AND  LUTHER  : 

Lecture  1 37 

Lecture  II. 66 

Lecture  III 96 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  THE  SCOTTISH  CHAU 

ACTER ' 128 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CATHOLICISM 155 

A  PLEA  FOR  THE  FREE  DISCUSSION  OF  THEOLOGICAL  DIFFICUL- 
TIES      166 

CRITICISM  AND  THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY 197 

THE  BOOK  OF  JOR 228 

SPINOZA 274 

Tire  DISSOLUTION  OP  THE  MONASTERIES  ......    324 

ENGLAND'S  FORGOTTEN  WORTHIES 358 

HOMER 406 

THE  LIVES  OF  THE  SAINTS 

REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

REYNARD  THE  Fox  .  

THE  CAT'S  PILGRIMAGE 

FABLES : 

I.  The  Lions  and  the  Oxen 

II.  The  Farmer  and  the  Fox    .  ... 

PARABLE  OF  THE  BREAD-FRUIT  TREE 

COMPENSATION 


THE 

SCIENCE   OF  HISTORY: 

A  LECTURE  DELIVERED  AT  THE  ROYAL  INSTITUTION, 
FEBRUARY  5,  1864. 


LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN,  —  I  have  undertaken  to  speak 
to  you  this  evening  on  what  is  called  the  Science  of  His- 
tory. I  fear  it  is  a  dry  subject ;  and  there  seems,  indeed, 
something  incongruous  in  the  very  connection  of  such 
words  as  Science  and  History.  It  is  as  if  we  were  to  talk 
of  the  color  of  sound,  or  the  longitude  of  the  Rule-of-three. 
Where  it  is  so  difficult  to  make  out  the  truth  on  the  com- 
monest disputed  fact  in  matters  passing  under  our  very 
eyes,  how  can  we  talk  of  a  science  in  things  long  past, 
which  come  to  us  only  through  books  ?  It  often  seems  to 
me  as  if  History  was  like  a  child's  box  of  letters,  with 
which  we  can  spell  any  word  we  please.  We  have  only  to 
pick  out  such  letters  as  we  want,  arrange  them  as  we  like, 
and  say  nothing  about  those  which  do  not  suit  our  piirpose. 

I  will  try  to  make  the  thing  intelligible,  and  I  will  try 
not  to  weary  you ;  but  I  am  doubtful  of  my  success  either 
way.  First,  however,  I  wish  to  say  a  word  or  two  about 
the  eminent  person  whose  name  is  connected  with  this 
way  of  looking  at  History,  and  whose  premature  death- 
struck  us  all  with  such  a  sudden  sorrow.  Many  of  you, 
perhaps,  recollect  Mr.  Buckle  as  he  stood  not  so  long  ago 
in  this  place.  He  spoke  more  than  an  hour  without  a  note, 


8  lite  Science  of  History. 

—  never  repeating  himself,  never  wasting  words ;  laying 
out  his  matter  as  easily  and  as  pleasantly  as  if  he  had  been 
talking  to  us  at  his  own  fireside.  We  might  think  what  we 
pleased  of  Mr.  Buckle's  views,  but  it  was  plain  enough  that 
he  was  a  man  of  uncommon  power ;  and  he  had  qualities 
also  —  qualities  to  which  he,  perhaps,  himself  attached  little 
value  —  as  rare  as  they  were  admirable. 

Most  of  us,  when  we  have  hit  on  something  which  we 
are  pleased  to  think  important  and  original,  feel  as  if  we 
should  burst  with  it.  We  come  out  into  the  book-market 
with  our  wares  in  hand,  and  ask  for  thanks  and  recognition. 
Mr.  Buckle,  at  an  early  age,  conceived  the  thought  which 
made  him  famous,  but  he  took  the  measure  of  his  abilities. 
He  knew  that  whenever  he  pleased  he  could  command  per- 
sonal distinction,  but  he  cared  more  for  his  subject  than 
for  himself.  He  was  contented  to  work  with  patient  reti- 
cence, unknown  and  unheard  of,  for  twenty  years ;  and  then, 
at  middle  life,  he  produced  a  work  which  was  translated  at 
once  into  French  and  German,  and,  of  all  places  in  the 
world,  fluttered  the  dovecotes  of  the  Imperial  Academy  of 
St.  Petersburg. 

Goethe  says  somewhere,  that,  as  soon  as  a  man  has  done 
any  thing  remarkable,  there  seems  to  be  a  general  conspir- 
acy to  prevent  him  from  doing  it  again.  He  is  feasted, 
feted,  caressed ;  his  time  is  stolen  from  him  by  breakfasts, 
dinners,  societies,  idle  businesses  of  a  thousand  kinds.  Mr. 
Buckle  had  his  share  of  all  this ;  but  there  are  also  more 
dangerous  enemies  that  wait  upon  success  like  his.  He 
had  scarcely  won  for  himself  the  place  which  he  deserved, 
than  his  health  was  found  shattered  by  his  labors.  He 
had  but  time  to  show  us  how  large  a  man  he  was,  time 
just  to  sketch  the  outlines  of  his  philosophy,  and  he  passed 
away  as  suddenly  as  he  appeared.  He  went  abroad  to  re- 
cover strength  for  his  work,  but  his  work  was  done  with  and 

O  f 

over.  He  died  of  a  fever  at  Damascus,  vexed  only  that  he 
was  compelled  to  leave  it  uncompleted.  Almost  his  last 


The  Science  of  History.  9 

conscious  words  were,  "  My  book,  my  book !  I  shall  never 
finish  ray  book  !  "  He  went  away  as  he  had  lived,  nobly 
careless  of  himself,  and  thinking  only  of  the  thing  which 
he  had  undertaken  to  do. 

But  his  labor  had  not  been  thrown  away.  Disagree 
with  him  as  we  might,  the  effect  which  he  had  already  pro- 
duced was  unmistakable,  and  it  is  not  likely  to  pass  away. 
What  he  said  was  not  essentially  new.  Some  such  inter- 
pretation of  human  things  is  as  early  as  the  beginning  of 
thought.  But  Mr.  Buckle,  on  the  one  hand,  had  the  art 
which  belongs  to  men  of  genius:  he  could  present  his 
opinions  with  peculiar  distinctness ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  much  in  the  mode  of  speculation  at  present 
current  among  us  for  which  those  opinions  have  an  unusual 
fascination.  They  do  not  please  us,  but  they  excite  and 
irritate  us.  We  are  angry  with  them  ;  and  we  betray,  in 
being  so,  an  uneasy  misgiving  that  there  may  be  more 
truth  in  those  opinions  than  we  like  to  allow. 

Mr.  Buckle's  general  theory  was  something  of  this  kind : 
When  human  creatures  began  first  to  look  about  them  in 
the  world  they  lived  in,  there  seemed  to  be  no  order  in 
any  thing.  Days  and  nights  were  not  the  same  length. 
The  air  was  sometimes  hot  and  sometimes  cold.  Some  of 
the  stars  rose  and  set  like  the  sun ;  some  were  almost 
motionless  in  the  sky ;  some  described  circles  round  a  cen- 
tral star  above  the  north  horizon.  The  planets  went  on 
principles  of  their  own ;  and  in  the  elements  there  seemed 
nothing  but  caprice.  Sun  and  moon  would  at  times  go 
out  in  eclipse.  Sometimes  the  earth  itself  would  shake 
under  men's  feet ;  and  they  could  only  suppose  that  earth 
and  air  and  sky  and  water  were  inhabited  and  managed  by 
creatures  as  wayward  as  themselves. 

Time  went  on,  and  the  disorder  began  to  arrange  itself. 
Certain  influences  seemed  beneficent  to  men,  others  ma- 
lignant and  destructive  ;  and  the  world  was  supposed  to  be 
animated  by  good  spirits  and  evil  spirits,  who  were  contin 


10  The  Science  of  History. 

ually  fighting  against  each  other,  in  outward  nature  and  in 
human  creatures  themselves.  Finally,  as  men  observed 
more  and  imagined  less,  these  interpretations  gave  way 
also.  Phenomena  the  most  opposite  in  effect  were  seen  to 
be  the  result  of  the  same  natural  law.  The  fire  did  not 
burn  the  house  down  if  the  owners  of  it  were  careful,  but 
remained  on  the  hearth  and  boiled  the  pot ;  nor  did  it 
seem  more  inclined  to  burn  a  bad  man's  house  down  than 
a  good  man's,  provided  the  badness  did  not  take  the  form 
of  negligence.  The  phenomena  of  nature  were  found  for 
the  most  part  to  proceed  in  an  orderly,  regular  way,  and 
their  variations  to  be  such  as  could  be  counted  upon. 
From  observing  the  order 'of  things,  the  step  was  easy  to 
cause  and  effect.  An  eclipse,  instead  of  being  a  sign  of 
the  anger  of  Heaven,  was  found  to  be  the  necessary  and 
innocent  result  of  the  relative  position  of  sun,  moon,  and 
earth.  The  comets  became  bodies  in  space,  unrelated  to 
the  beings  who  had  imagined  that  ail  creation  was  watch- 
ing them  and  their  doings.  By  degrees  caprice,  volition. 
all  symptoms  of  arbitrary  action,  disappeared  out  of  the 
universe ;  and  almost  every  phenomenon  in  earth  or 
heaven  was  found  attributable  to  some  law,  either  under- 
stood or  perceived  to  exist.  Thus  nature  was  reclaimed 
from  the  imagination.  The  first  fantastic  conception  of 
things  gave  way  before  the  moral ;  the  moral  in  turn  gave 
way  before  the  natural ;  and  at  last  there  was  left  but  one 
small  tract  of  jungle  where  the  theory  of  law  had  failed  to 
penetrate,  —  the  doings  and  characters  of  human  creatures 
themselves. 

There,  and  only  there,  amidst  the  conflicts  of  reason  and 
emotion,  conscience  and  desire,  spiritual  forces  were  still 
conceived  to  exist.  Cause  and  effect  were  not  traceable 
when  there  was  a  free  volition  to  disturb  the  connection. 
In  all  other  things,  from  a  given  set  of  conditions  the  con- 
sequences necessarily  followed.  With  man,  the  word  "  law  " 
changed  its  meaning  :  and  instead  of  a  fixed  order,  which 


The  Science  of  History.  11 

he  could  not  choose  but  follow,  it  became  a  moral  precept, 
which  he  might  disobey  if  he  dared. 

This  it  was  which  Mr.  Buckle  disbelieved.  The  economy 
which  prevailed  throughout  nature,  he  thought  it  very  un- 
likely should  admit  of  this  exception.  He  considered  that 
human  beings  acted  necessarily  from  the  impulse  of  out- 
ward circumstances  upon  their  mental  and  bodily  condi- 
tion at  any  given  moment.  Every  man,  he  said,  acted 
from  a  motive  ;  and  his  conduct  was  determined  by  the 
motive  which  affected  him  most  powerfully.  Every  man 
naturally  desires  what  he  supposes  to  be  good  for  him ; 
but,  to  do  well,  he  must  know  well.  He  will  eat  poison,  so 
long  as  he  does  not  know  that  it  is  poison.  Let  him  see 
that  it  will  kill  him,  and  he  will  not  touch  it.  The  ques- 
tion was  not  of  moral  right  and  wrong.  Once  let  him  be 

o  o 

thoroughly  made  to  feel  that  the  thing  is  destructive,  and 
he  will  leave  it  alone  by  the  law  of  his  nature.  His  vir- 
tues are  the  result  of  knowledge ;  his  faults,  the  necessary 
consequence  of  the  want  of  it.  A  boy  desires  to  draw. 
He  knows  nothing  about  it :  he  draws  men  like  trees  or 
houses,  with  their  centre  of  gravity  anywhere.  He  makes 
mistakes,  because  he  knows  no  better:  We  do  not  blame 
him.  Till  he  is  better  taught,  he  cannot  help  it.  But  his 
instruction  begins.  He  arrives  at  straight  lines ;  then  at 
solids ;  then  at  curves.  He  learns  perspective,  and  light 
and  shade.  He  observes  more  accurately  the  forms  which 
he  wishes  to  represent.  He  perceives  effects,  and  he  per- 
ceives the  means  by  which  they  are  produced.  He  has 
learned  what  to  do ;  and,  in  part,  he  has  learned  how  to  do 
it.  His  after-progress  will  depend  on  the  amount  of  force 
which  his  nature  possesses ;  but  all  this  is  as  natural  aa 
the  growth  of  an  acorn.  You  do  not  preach  to  the  acorn 
that  it  is  its  duty  to  become  a  large  tree ;  you  do  not 
preach  to  the  art-pupil  that  it  is  his  duty  to  become  a 
Holbein.  You  plant  your  acorn  in  favorable  soil,  where 
it  can  have  light  and  air,  and  be  sheltered  from  the  wind  ; 


12  The  Science  of  History. 

you  remove  the  superfluous  branches,  you  train  the 
strength  into  the  leading  shoots.  The  acorn  will  then 
become  as  fine  a  tree  as  it  has  vital  force  to  become.  The 
difference  between  men  and  other  things  is  only  in  the 
largeness  and  variety  of  man's  capacities ;  and  in  this 
special  capacity,  that  he  alone  has  the  power  of  observing 
the  circumstances  favorable  to  his  own  growth,  and  can 
apply  them  for  himself,  yet,  again,  with  this  condition,  — 
that  he  is  not,  as  is  commonly  supposed,  free  to  choose 
whether  he  will  make  use  of  these  appliances  or  not. 
When  he  knows  what  is  good  for  him,  he  will  choose  it ; 
and  he  will  judge  what  is  good  for  him  by  the  circum- 
stances which  have  made  him  what  he  is. 

And  what  he  would  do,  Mr.  Buckle  supposed  that  he 
always  had  done.  His  history  had  been  a  natural  growth 
as  much  as  the  growth  of  the  acorn.  His  improvement 
had  followed  the  progress  of  his  knowledge  ;  and,  by  a 
comparison  of  his  outward  circumstances  with  the  condi- 
tion of  his  mind,  his  whole  proceedings  on  this  planet,  his 
creeds  and  constitutions,  his  good  deeds  and  his  bad,  his 
arts  and  his  sciences,  his  empires  and  his  revolutions, 
would  be  found  all  to  arrange  themselves  into  clear  rela- 
tions of  cause  and  effect. 

If,  when  Mr.  Buckle  pressed  his  conclusions,  we  ob- 
jected the  difficulty  of  finding  what  the  truth  about  past 
times  really  was,  he  would  admit  it  candidly  as  far  as  con- 
cerned individuals ;  but  there  was  not  the  same  difficulty, 
he  said,  with  masses  of  men.  We  might  disagree  about 
the  character  of  Julius  or  Tiberius  Cassar,  but  we  could 
know  well  enough  the  Romans  of  the  Empire.  We  had 
their  literature  to  tell  us  how  they  thought ;  we  had  their 
laws  to  tell  us  how  they  governed ;  we  had  the  broad  face 
of  the  world,  the  huge  mountainous  outline  of  their  gen- 
eral doings  upon  it,  to  tell  us  how  they  acted.  He  be- 
lieved it  was  all  reducible  to  laws,  and  could  be  made  as 
intelligible  as  the  growth  of  the  chalk  cliffs  or  the  ooal 
measures. 


TJie  Science  of  History.  13 

And  thus  consistently  Mr.  Buckle  cared  little  for  in« 
dividuals.  He  did  not  believe  (as  some  one  has  said)  that 
the  history  of  mankind  is  the  history  of  its  great  men. 
Great  men  with  him  were  but  larger  atoms,  obeying  the 
same  impulses  with  the  rest,  only  perhaps  a  trifle  more 
erratic.  With  them  or  without  them,  the  course  of  things 
would  have  been  much  the  same. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  truth  of  his  view,  he  would 
point  to  the  new  science  of  Political  Economy.  Here 
already  was  a  large  area  of  human  activity  in  which  nat- 
ural laws  were  found  to  act  unerringly.  Men  had  gone 
on  for  centuries  trying  to  regulate  trade  on  moral  princi- 
ples. They  would  fix  wages  according  to  some  imaginary 
rule  of  fairness ;  they  would  fix  prices  by  what  they  con- 
sidered things  ought  to  cost ;  they  encouraged  one  trade 
or  discouraged  another,  for  moral  reasons.  They  might  as 
well  have  tried  to  work  a  steam-engine  on  moral  reasons. 
The  great  statesmen  whose  names  were  connected  with 
these  enterprises  might  have  as  well  legislated  thatv,::.,.r 
should  run  up-hill.  There  were  natural  laws,  fixed  in  the 
conditions  of  things  ;  and  to  contend  against  them  was  the 
old  battle  of  the  Titans  against  the  gods. 

As  it  was  with  political  economy,  so  it  was  with  all  other 
forms  of  human  activity ;  and,  as  the  true  laws  of  political 
economy  explained  the  troubles  which  people  fell  into  in 
old  limes  because  they  were  ignorant  of  them,  so  the  true 
laws  of  human  nature,  as  soon  as  we  knew  them,  would 
explain  their  mistakes  in  more  serious  matters,  and  enable 
us  to  manage  better  for  the  future.  Geographical  position, 
climate,  air,  soil,  and  the  like,  had  their  several  influences. 
The  northern  nations  are  hardy  and  industrious,  because 
they  must  till  the  earth  if  they  would  eat  the  fruits  of  it, 
and  because  the  temperature  is  too  low  to  make  an  idle 
life  enjoyable.  In  the  south,  the  soil  is  more  productive, 
while  less  food  is  wanted  and  fewer  clothes  ;  and,  in  the  ex- 
quisite  air,  exertion  is  not  needed  to  make  the  sense  of 


14  The  Science  of  History. 

existence  delightful.  Therefore,  in  the  south  \ve  find  men 
lazy  and  indolent. 

True,  there  are  difficulties  in  these  views ;  the  home  of 
the  languid  Italian  was  the  home  also  of  the  sternest  race 

O 

of  whom  the  story  of  mankind  retains  a  record.  And 
again,  when  we  are  told  that  the  Spaniards  are  supersti- 
tious because  Spain  is  a  country  of  earthquakes,  we  re- 
member Japan,  the  spot  in  all  the  world  where  earthquakes 
are  most  frequent,  and  where  at  the  same  time  there  is  the 
most  serene  disbelief  in  any  supernatural  agency  whatso- 
ever. 

Moreover,  if  men  grow  into  what  they  are  by  natural 
laws,  they  cannot  help  being  what  they  are ;  and,  if  they 
cannot  help  being  what  they  are,  a  good  deal  will  have  to 
be  altered  in  our  general  view  of  human  obligations  and 
responsibilities. 

That,  however,  in  these  theories  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
truth,  is  quite  certain,  were  there  but  a  hope  that  those 
who  maintain  them  would  be  contented  with  that  admission. 
A  man  born  in  a  Mahometan  country  grows  up  a  Mahom- 
etan ;  in  a  Catholic  country,  a  Catholic ;  in  a  Protestant 
country,  a  Protestant.  His  opinions  are  like  his  language : 
he  learns  to  think  as  he  learns  to  speak  ;  and  it  is  absurd 
to  suppose  him  responsible  for  being  what  nature  makes 
him.  We  take  pains  to  educate  children.  There  is  a 
good  education  and  a  bad  education  ;  there  are  rules  well 
ascertained  by  which  characters  are  influenced ;  and, 
clearly  enough,  it  is  no  mere  matter  for  a  boy's  free  will 
whether  he  turns  out  well  or  ill.  We  try  to  train  him 
into  good  habits  ;  we  keep  him  out  of  the  way  of  tempta- 
tions ;  we  see  that  he  is  well  taught ;  we  mix  kindness  and 
strictness ;  we  surround  him  with  every  good  influence  we 
can  command.  These  are  what  are  termed  the  advan- 
tages of  a  good  education ;  and,  if  we  fail  to  provide  those 
under  our  care  with  it,  and  if  they  go  wrong,  the  respon- 
sibility we  feel  is  as  much  ours  as  theirs.  This  is  at  once 


Tfie  Science  of  History.  15 

an  admission  of  the  power   over  us  of  outward  circum« 
stances. 

In  the  same  way,  we  allow  for » the  strength  of  tempta- 
tions, and  the  like. 

In  general,  it  is  perfectly  obvious  that  men  do  neces- 
sarily absorb,  out  of  the  influences  in  which  they  grow  up, 
something  which  gives  a  complexion  to  their  whole  after- 
character. 

When  historians  have  to  relate  great  social  or  specula- 
tive changes,  the  overthrow  of  a  monarchy  or  the  establish- 
ment of  a  creed,  they  do  but  half  their  duty  if  they  merely 
relate  the  events.  In  an  account,  for  instance,  of  the  rise 
of  Mahometanism,  it  is  not  enough  to  describe  the  charac- 
ter of  the  Prophet,  the  ends  which  he  set  before  him,  the 
means  which  he  made  use  of,  and  the  effect  which  he  pro- 
duced ;  the  historian  must  show  what  there  was  in  the  con- 
dition of  the  eastern  races  which  enabled  Mahomet  to  act 
upon  them  so  powerfully ;  their  existing  beliefs,  their  ex- 
isting moral  and  political  condition. 

In  our  estimate  of  the  past,  and  in  our  calculations  of 
the  future,  in  the  judgments  which  we  pass  upon  one 
another,  we  measure  responsibility,  not  by  the  thing  done, 
but  by  the  opportunities  which  people  have  had  of  know- 
ing better  or  worse.  In  the  efforts  which  we  make  to  keep 
our  children  from  bad  associations  or  friends,  we  admit  that 
external  circumstances  have  a  powerful  effect  in  making 
men  what  they  are. 

But  are  circumstances  every  thing  ?  That  is  the  whole 
question.  A  science  of  history,  if  it  is  more  than  a  mis- 
leading name,  implies  that  the  relation  between  cause  and 
effect  holds  in  human  things  as  completely  as  in  all  others  ; 
that  the  origin  of  human  actions  is  not  to  be  looked  for  in 
mysterious  properties  of  the  mind,  but  in  influences  which 
are  ptilpable  and  ponderable. 

When  natural  causes  are  liable  to  be  set  aside  and 
neutralized  by  what  is  called  volition,  the  word  Science  is 


16  The  Science  of  History. 

out  of  place.  If  it  is  free  to  man  to  choose  what  he  will 
do  or  not  do,  there  is  no  adequate  science  of  him.  If 
there  is  a  science  of  him,  there  is  no  free  choice,  and  the 
praise  or  blame  with  which  we  regard  one  another  are  im- 
pertinent and  out  of  place. 

I  am  trespassing  upon  these  ethical  grounds  because, 
unless  I  do,  the  subject  cannot  be  made  intelligible.  Man- 
kind are  but  an  aggregate  of  individuals  ;  History  is  but 
the  record  of  individual  action  :  and  what  is  true  of  the 
part  is  true  of  the  whole. 

We  feel  keenly  about  such  things,  and,  when  the  logic 
becomes  perplexing,  we  are  apt  to  grow  rhetorical  about 
them.  But  rhetoric  is  only  misleading.  "Whatever  the 
truth  may  be,  it  is  best  that  we  should  know  it ;  and  for 
truth  of  any  kind  we  should  keep  our  heads  and  hearts  as 
cool  as  we  can. 

I  will  say  at  once,  that,  if  we  had  the  whole  case  before 
us ;  if  we  were  taken,  like  Leibnitz's  Tarquin,  into  the 
council  chamber  of  Nature,  and  were  shown  what  we 
really  were,  where  we  came  from,  and  where  we  were 
going,  however  unpleasant  it  might  be  for  some  of  us  to 
find  ourselves,  like  Tarquin,  made  into  villains,  from  the 
subtle  necessities  of  "  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds,"  — 
nevertheless,  some  such  theory  as  Mr.  Buckle's  might  pos- 
sibly turn  out  to  be  true.  Likely  enough,  there  is  some 
great  "  equation  of  the  universe  "  where  the  value  of  the 
unknown  quantities  can  be  determined.  But  we  must 
treat  things  in  relation  to  our  own  powers  and  position  • 
and  the  question  is,  whether  the  sweep  of  those  vast  curves 
can  be  measured  by  the  intellect  of  creatures  of  a  day  like 
ourselves. 

The  "  Faust "  of  Goethe,  tired  of  the  barren  round  of 
earthly  knowledge,  calls  magic  to  his  aid.  He  desires, 
first,  to  see  the  spirit  of  the  Macrocosmos,  but  his  heart 
fails  him  before  he  ventures  that  tremendous  experiment, 
and  he  summons  before  him,  instead,  the  spirit  of  his  own 


The  Science  of  History.  17 

race.  There  he  feels  himself  at  home.  The  stream  of 
life  and  the  storm  of  action,  the  everlasting  ocean  of  ex- 
istence, the  web  and  the  woof,  and  the  roaring  loom  of 
Time,  —  he  gazes  upon  them  all,  and  in  passionate  exulta- 
tion claims  fellowship  with  the  awful  thing  before  him. 
But  the  majestic  vision  fades,  and  a  voice  comes  to  him,  — 
"Thou  art  fellow  with  the  spirits  which  thy  mind  can  grasp, 
not  with  me." 

Had  Mr.  Buckle  tried  to  follow  his  principles  into  detail, 
it  might  have  fared  no  better  with  him  than  with  "  Faust." 

What  are  the  conditions  of  a  science  ?  and  when  may 
any  subject  be  said  to  enter  the  scientific  stage  ?  I  sup- 
pose when  the  facts  of  it  begin  to  resolve  themselves  into 
groups  ;  when  phenomena  are  no  longer  isolated  expe- 
riences, but  appear  in  connection  and  order ;  when,  after 
certain  antecedents,  certain  consequences  are  uniformly 
seen  to  follow ;  when  facts  enough  have  been  collected  to 
furnish  a  basis  for  conjectural  explanation  ;  and  when  con- 
jectures have  so  far  ceased  to  be  utterly  vague  that  it  is 
possible  in  some  degree  to  foresee  the  future  by  the  help 
of  them. 

Till  a  subject  has  advanced  as  far  as  this,  to  speak  of  a 
science  of  it  is  an  abuse  of  language.  It  is  not  enough  to 
say  that  there  must  be  a  science  of  human  things  because 
there  is  a  science  of  all  other  things.  This  is  like  saying 
the  planets  must  be  inhabited  because  the  only  planet  of 
which  we  have  any  experience  is  inhabited.  It  may  or 
may  not  be  true,  but  it  is  not  a  practical  question  ;  it  does 
not  affect  the  practical  treatment  of  the  matter  in  hand. 

Let  us  look  at  the  history  of  Astronomy. 

So  long  as  sun.  moon,  and  planets  were  supposed  to  be 
gods  or  angels ;  so  long  as  the  sword  of  Orion  was  not  a 
metaphor,  but  a  fact,  and  the  groups  of  stars  which  inlaid 
the  floor  of  heaven  were  the  glittering  trophies  of  the 
loves  and  Avars  of  the  Pantheon,  —  so  long  there  was  no 
science  of  Astronomy.  There  was  fancy,  imagination, 
9 


18  The  Science  of  History. 

poetry,  perhaps  reverence,  but  no  science.  As  soon,  how- 
ever, as  it  was  observed  that  the  stars  retained  their  rela- 
tive places ;  that  the  times  of  their  rising  and  setting 
varied  with  the  seasons ;  that  sun,  moon,  and  planets 
moved  among  them  in  a  plane,  and  the  belt  of  the  Zodiac 
was  marked  out  and  divided,  —  then  a  new  order  of  things 
began.  Traces  of  the  earlier  stage  remained  in  the 
names  of  the  signs  and  constellations,  just  as  the  Scandi- 
navian mythology  survives  now  in  the  names  of  the  days 
of  the  week :  but,  for  all  that,  the  understanding  was  now 
at  work  on  the  thing ;  Science  had  begun,  and  the  first 
triumph  of  it  was  the  power  of  foretelling  the  future. 
Eclipses  were  perceived  to  recur  in  cycles  of  nineteen 
years,  and  philosophers  were  able  to  say  when  an  eclipse 
was  to  be  looked  for.  The  periods  of  the  planets  were 
determined.  Theories  were  invented  to  account  for  their 
eccentricities ;  and,  false  as  those  theories  might  be,  the 
position  of  the  planets  could  be  calculated  with  moderate 
certainty  by  them.  The  very  first  result  of  the  science, 
in  its  most  imperfect  stage,  was  a  power  of  foresight ;  and 
this  was  possible  before  any  one  true  astronomical  law  had 
been  discovered. 

We  should  not  therefore  question  the  possibility  of  a 
science  of  history  because  the  explanations  of  its  phenom- 
ena were  rudimentary  or  imperfect :  that  they  might  be, 
and  might  long  continue  to  be,  and  yet  enough  might  be 
done  to  show  that  there  was  such  a  thing,  and  that  it  was 
not  entirely  without  use.  But  how  was  it  that  in  those 
rude  days,  with  small  knowledge  of  mathematics,  and  with 
no  better  instruments  than  flat  walls  and  dial-plates,  those 
first  astronomers  made  progress  so  considerable  ?  Because, 
I  suppose,  the  phenomena  which  they  were  observing  re- 
curred, for  the  most  part,  within  moderate  intervals ;  so 
that  they  could  collect  large  experience  within  the  compass 
of  their  natural  lives  :  because  days  and  months  and  years 
were  measurable  periods,  and  within  them  the  more  simple 
phenomena  perpetually  repeated  themselves. 


The  Science  of  Histvry.  19 

But  how  would  it  have  been  if,  instead  of  turning  on  its 
axis  once  in  twenty-four  hours,  the  earth  had  taken  a  year 
about  it ;  if  the  year  had  been  nearly  four  hundred  years  ; 
if  man's  life  had  been  no  longer  than  it  is,  and  for  the 
initial  steps  of  astronomy  there  had  been  nothing  to  de- 
pend upon  except  observations  recorded  in  history  ?  How 
many  ages  would  have  passed,  had  this  been  our  condition, 
before  it  would  have  occurred  to  any  one,  that,  in  what 
they  saw  night  after  night,  there  was  any  kind  of  order  at 
all? 

We  can  see  to  some  extent  how  it  would  have  been,  by 
the  present  state  of  those  parts  of  the  science  which  in  fact 
depend  on  remote  recorded  observations.  The  movements 
of  the  comets  are  still  extremely  uncertain.  The  times 
of  their  return  can  be  calculated  only  with  the  greatest 
vagueness. 

And  yet  such  a  hypothesis  as  I  have  suggested  would 
but  inadequately  express  the  position  in  which  we  are  in 
fact  placed  towards  history.  There  the  phenomena  never 
repeat  themselves-.  There  we  are  dependent  wholly  on 
the  record  of  things  said  to  have  happened  once,  but 
which  never  happen  or  can  happen  a  second  time.  There 
no  experiment  is  possible ;  we  can  watch  for  no  recurring 
fact  to  test  the  worth  of  our  conjectures.  It  has  been 
suggested  fancifully,  that,  if  we  consider  the  universe  to  be 
infinite,  time  is  the  same  as  eternity,  and  the  past  is  per- 
petually present.  Light  takes  nine  years  to  come  to  us 
from  Sirius :  those  rays  which  we  may  see  to-night,  when 
we  leave  this  place,  left  Sirius  nine  years  ago  ;  and,  could 
the  inhabitants  of  Sirius  see  the  earth  at  this  moment, 
they  would  see  the  English  army  in  the  trenches  before 
Sebastopol,  Florence  Nightingale  watching  at  Scutari  over 
the  wounded  at  Inkermann,  and  the  peace  of  England 
undisturbed  by  "  Essays  and  Reviews." 

As  the  stars  recede  into  distance,  so  time  recedes  with 
them  ;  and  there  may  be,  and  probably  are,  stars  from 


20  The,  Science  of  History. 

which  Noah  might  be  seen  stepping  into  the  nrk,  Eve  list- 
ening to  the  temptation  of  the  serpent,  or  that  older  race, 
eating  the  oysters  and  leaving  the  shell-heaps  behind  them, 
when  the  Baltic  was  an  open  sea. 

Could  we  but  compare  notes,  something  might  be  done ; 
but  of  this  there  is  no  present  hope,  and  without  it  there 
will  be  no  science  of  history.  Eclipses,  recorded  in  an- 
cient books,  can  be  verified  by  calculations,  and  lost  dates 
can  be  recovered  by  them ;  and  we  can  foresee,  by  the  laws 
which  they  follow,  when  there  will  be  eclipses  again.  Will 
a  time  ever  be  when  the  lost  secret  of  the  foundation  of 
Rome  can  be  recovered  by  historic  laws  ?  If  not,  where 
is  our  science  ?  It  may  be  said  that  this  is  a  particular 
fact,  that  we  can  deal  satisfactorily  with  general  phenom- 
ena affecting  eras  and  cycles.  AArell,  then,  let  us  take 
some  general  phenomenon  ;  Mahometanism,  for  instance, 
or  Buddhism.  Those  are  large  enough.  Can  you  imag- 
ine a  science  which  would  have  l  foretold  such  movements 
as  those  ?  The  state  of  things  out  of  which  they  rose  is 
obscure  ;  but,  suppose  it  not  obscure,  can  you  conceive  that, 
with  any  amount  of  historical  insight  into  the  old  oriental 
beliefs,  you  could  have  seen  that  they  were  about  to  trans- 
form themselves  into  those  particular  forms  and  no  other  ? 

It  is  not  enough  to  say,  that,  after  the  fact,  you  can 
understand  partially  how  Mahometanism  came  to  be.  All 
historians  worth  the  name  have  told  us  something  about 
that.  But  when  we  talk  of  science,  we  mean  something 
with  more  ambitious  pretences,  we  mean  something  which 
can  foresee  as  well  as  explain ;  and,  thus  looked  at,  to 
state  the  problem  is  to  show  its  absurdity.  As  little  could 
the  wisest  man  have  foreseen  this  mighty  revolution,  as 
thirty  years  ago  such  a  thing  as  Mormonism  could  have 

1  It  is  objected  that  Geology  is  a  science  :  yet  that  Geology  cannot  fore- 
tell the  future  changes  of  the  earth's  surface.  Geology  is  not  a  century  old, 
and  its  periods  are  measured  by  millions  of  years.  Yet,  if  Geology  cannot 
foretell  future  facts,  it  enabled  Sir  Koderick  Murchison  to  foretell  the  discov- 
ery of  Australian  {jold. 


The  Science  of  History.  21 

been  anticipated  in  America ;  as  little  as  it  could  have 
been  foreseen  that  table-turning  and  spirit  rapping  would 
have  been  an  outcome  of  the  scientific  culture  of  England 
in  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  greatest  of  Roman  thinkers,  gazing  mournfully  at 
the  seething  mass  of  moral  putrefaction  round  him,  de- 
tected and  deigned  to  notice  among  its  elements  a  certain 
detestable  superstition,  so  he  called  it,  rising  up  amidst  the 
offscouring  of  the  Jews,  which  was  named  Christianity. 
Could  Tacitus  have  looked  forward  nine  centuries  to  the 
Rome  of  Gregory  VII.,  could  he  have  beheld  the  represen- 
tative of  the  majesty  of  the  Cassars  holding  the  stirrup  of 
the  Pontiff  of  that  vile  and  execrated  sect,  the  spectacle 
would  scarcely  have  appeared  to  him  the  fulfillment  of  a 
rational  expectation,  or  an  intelligible  result  of  the  causes 
in  operation  round  him.  Tacitus,  indeed,  was  born  before 
the  science  of  history ;  but  would  M.  Comte  have  seen  any 
more  clearly  ? 

Nor  is  the  case  much  better  if  we  are  less  hard  upon 
our  philosophy ;  if  we  content  ourselves  with  the  past,  and 
require  only  a  scientific  explanation  of  that. 

First,  for  the  facts  themselves.  They  come  to  us 
through  the  minds  of  •  those  who  recorded  them,  neither 
machines  nor  angels,  but  fallible  creatures,  with  human 
passions  and  prejudices.  Tacitus  and  Thucydides  were 
perhaps  the  ablest  men  who  ever  gave  themselves  to  writ- 
ing history;  the  ablest,  and  also  the  most  incapable  of 
conscious  falsehood.  Yet  even  now,  after  all  these  centu- 
ries, the  truth  of  what  they  relate  is  called  in  question. 
Good  reasons  can  be  given  to  show  that  neither  of  them 
can  be  confidently  trusted.  If  we  doubt  with  these,  whom 
are  we  to  believe  ? 

Or,  again,  let  the  facts  be  granted.  To  revert  to  my 
simile  of  the  box  of  letters,  you  have  but  to  select  such 
facts  as  suit  you,  you  have  but  to  leave  alone  those  which 
do  not  suif  you,  and,  let  your  theory  of  history  be  what 


22  The  Science  of  History. 

it  will,  you   can   find   uo  difficulty  in   providing   facts  to 
prove  it. 

You  may  have  your  Hegel's  philosophy  of  history,  or 
you  may  have  your  Schlegel's  philosophy  of  history ;  you 
may  prove  from  history  that  the  world  is  governed  in 
detail  by  a  special  Providence  ;  you  may  prove  that  there 
is  no  sign  of  any  moral  agent  in  the  universe,  except  man  ; 
you  may  believe,  if  you  like  it,  in  the  old  theory  of  the 
wisdom  of  antiquity ;  you  .may  speak,  as  was  the  fashion  in 
the  fifteenth  century,  of  "  our  fathers,  who  had  more  wit 
and  wisdom  than  we  ; "  or  you  may  talk  of  "  our  barbarian 
ancestors,"  and  describe  their  wars  as  the  scuffling  of  kites 
and  crows. 

You  may  maintain  that  the  evolution  of  humanity  has 
been  an  unbroken  progress  towards  perfection  ;  you  may 
maintain  that  there  has  been  no  progress  at  all;  and  that 
man  remains  the  same  poor  creature  that  he  ever  was  ; 
or,  lastly,  you  may  say,  with  the  author  of  the  "  Contract 
Social,"  that  men  were  purest  and  best  in  primeval  sim- 
plicity, - 

"  When  wild  in  woods  the  noble  savage  ran." 

In  all  or  any  of  these  views,  history  will  stand  your 
friend.  History,  in  its  passive  irony,  will  make  no  objec- 
tion. Like  Jarno,  in  Goethe's  novel,  it  will  not  condescend 
to  argue  with  you,  and  will  provide  you  with  abundant  illus- 
trations of  any  thing  which  you  may  wish  to  believe. 

';  What  is  history,"  said  Napoleon,  "  but  a  fiction  agreed 
upon  ?  "  "  My  friend,"  said  Faust  to  the  student,  who  was 
growing  enthusiastic  about  the  spirit  of  past  ages,  —  "  my 
friend,  the  times  which  are  gone  are  a  book  with  seven 
seals  ;  and  what  you  call  the  spirit  of  past  ages  is  but  the 
spirit  of  this  or  that  worthy  gentleman  in  whose  miud  those 
ages  are  reflected." 

One  lesson,  and  only  one,  history  may  be  said  to  repeat 
with  distinctness :  that  the  world  is  built  somehow  on  moral 
foundations  ;  that,  in  the  long  run,  it  is  well  with  the  good ; 


The  Science  of  History.  23 

in  the  long  run,  it  is  ill  with  the  wicked.  But  this  is  no 
science ;  it  is  no  more  than  the  old  doctrine  taught  long 
ago  by  the  Hebrew  prophets.  The  theories  of  M.  Comte 
and  his  disciples  advance  us,  after  all,  not  a  step  beyond 
the  trodden  and  familiar  ground.  If  men  are  not  entirely 
;uiimals,  they  are  at  least  half  animals,  and  are  subject  in 
this  aspect  of  them  to  the  conditions  of  animals.  So  far 
as  those  parts  of  man's  doings  are  concerned,  which  neither 
have,  nor  need  have,  any  thing  moral  about  them,  so  far 
the  laws  of  him  are  calculable.  There  are  laws  for  his 
digestion,  and  laws  of  the  means  by  which  his  digestive 
organs  are  supplied  with  matter.  But  pass  beyond  them, 
and  where  are  we  ?  In  a  world  where  it  would  be  as  easy 
to  calculate  men's  actions  by  laws  like  those  of  positive 
philosophy  as  to  measure  the  orbit  of  Neptune  with  a  foot- 
rule,  or  weigh  Sirius  in  a  grocer's  scale. 

And  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  why  this  should  be.  The 
first  principle,  on  which  the  theory  of  a  science  of  history 
can  be  plausibly  argued,  is  that  all  actions  whatsoever  arise 
from  self-interest.  It  may  be  enlightened  self-interest,  it 
may  be  unenlightened ;  but  it  is  assumed  as  an  axiom,  that 
every  man,  in  whatever  he  does,  is  aiming  at  something 
which  he  considers  will  promote  his  happiness.  His  con- 
duct is  not  determined  by  his  will ;  it  is  determined  by  the 
object  of  his  desire.  Adam  Smith,  in  laying  the  founda- 
tions of  political  economy,  expressly  eliminates  every  other 
motive.  He  does  not  say  that  men  never  act  on  other 
motives ;  still  less,  that  they  never  ought  to  act  on  other 
motives.  He  asserts  merely  that,  as  far  as  the  arts  of  pro- 
duction are  concerned,  and  of  buying  and  selling,  the  action 
of  self-interest  may  be  counted  upon  as  uniform.  What 
Adam  Smith  says  of  political  economy,  Mr.  Buckle  would 
extend  over  the  whole  circle  of  human  activity. 

Now,  that  which  especially  distinguishes  a  high  order  of 
man  from  a  low  order  of  man  —  that  which  constitutes  hu- 
man goodness,  human  greatness,  human  nobleness  —  is 


24  The  Science  of  History. 

surely  not  the  degree  of  enlightenment  with  which  men 
pursue  their  own  advantage :  but  it  is  self-forgetfulness  ;  it 
is  self-sacrifice ;  it  is  the  disregard  of  personal  pleasure, 
personal  indulgence,  personal  advantages  remote  or  pres- 
ent, because  some  other  line  of  conduct  is  more  right. 

We  are  sometimes  told  that  this  is  but  another  way  of 
expressing  the  same  thing  ;  that,  when  a  man  prefers  doing 
what  is  right,  it  is  only  because  to  do  right  gives  him  a 
higher  satisfaction.  It  appears  to  me,  on  the  contrary,  to 
be  a  difference  in  the  very  heart  and  nature  of  things.  The 
martyr  goes  to  the  stake,  the  patriot  to  the  scaffold,  not 
with  a  view  to  any  future  reward  to  themselves,  but  because 
it  is  a  glory  to  fling  away  their  lives  for  truth  and  freedom. 
And  so  through  all  phases  of  existence,  to  the  smallest  de- 
tails of  common  life,  the  beautiful  character  is  the  unselfish 
character.  Those  whom  we  most  love  and  admire  are 
those  to  whom  the  thought  of  self  seems  never  to  occur ; 
who  do  simply  and  with  no  ulterior  aim  —  with  no  thought 
whether  it  will  be  pleasant  to  themselves  or  unpleasant  — 
that  which  is  good  and  right  and  generous. 

Is  this  still  selfishness,  only  more  enlightened?  I  do  not 
think  so.  The  essence  of  true  nobility  is  neglect  of  self. 
Let  the  thought  of  self  pass  in,  and  the  beauty  of  a  great 
action  is  gone,  like  the  bloom  from  a  soiled  flower.  Surely 
it  is  a  paradox  to  speak  of  the  self-interest  of  a  martyr  who 
dies  for  a  cause,  the  triumph  of  which  he  will  never  enjoy ; 
and  the  greatest  of  that  great  company  in  all  ages  would 
have  done  what  they  did,  had  their  personal  prospects  closed 
with  the  grave.  Kay,  there  have  been  those  so  zealous  for 
some  glorious  principle  as  to  wish  themselves  blotted  out 
of  the  book  of  Heaven  if  the  cause  of  Heaven  could  suc- 
ceed. 

And  out  of  this  mysterious  quality,  whatever  it  be,  arise 
the  higher  relations  of  human  life,  the  higher  modes  of  hu- 
man obligation.  Kant,  the  philosopher,  used  to  say  that 
there  were  two  things  which  overwhelmed  him  with  awe  as 


The  Science  of  History.  25 

he  thought  of  them.  One  was  the  star-sown  deep  of  space, 
without  limit  and  without  end  ;  the  other  was,  right  and 
wrong.  Right,  the  sacrifice  of  self  to  good ;  wrong,  the 
sacrifice  of  good  to  self,  —  not  graduated  objects  of  desire, 
to  which  we  are  determined  by  the  degrees  of  our  knowl- 
edge, but  wide  asunder  as  pole  and  pole,  as  light  and  dark- 
ness :  one  the  object  of  infinite  love ;  the  other,  the  object 
of  infinite  detestation  and  scorn.  It  is  in  this  marvelous 
power  in  men  to  do  wrong  (it  is  an  old  story,  but  none  the 
less  true  for  that),  —  it  is  in  this  power  to  do  wrong  — 
wrong  or  right,  as  it  lies  somehow  with  ourselves  to  choose 
—  that  the  impossibility  stands  of  forming  scientific  calcu- 
lations of  what  men  will  do  before  the  fact,  or  scientific 
explanations  of  what  they  have  done  after  the  fact.  If  men 
were  consistently  selfish,  you  might  analyze  their  motives  ; 
if  they  were  consistently  noble,  they  would  express  in  their 
conduct  the  laws  of  the  highest  perfection.  But  so  long  as 
two  natures  are  mixed  together,  and  the  strange  creature 
which  results  from  the  combination  is  now  under  one  influ- 
ence and  now  under  another,  so  long  you  will  make  noth- 
ing of  him  except  from  the  old-fashioned  moral  —  or, .  if 
you  please,  imaginative  —  point  of  view. 

Even  the  laws  of  political  economy  itself  cease  to  guide 
us  when  they  touch  moral  government.  So  long  as  labor 
is  a  chattel  to  be  bought  and  sold,  so  long,  like  other  com- 
modities, it  follows  the  condition  of  supply  and  demand. 
vBut  if,  for  his  misfortune,  an  employer  considers  that  he 
stands  in  human  relations  towards  his  workmen ;  if  he  be- 
lieves, rightly  or  wrongly,  that  he  is  responsible  for  them ; 
that  in  return  for  their  labor  he  is  bound  to  see  that  their 
children  are  decently  taught,  and  they  and  their  families 
decently  fed  and  clothed  and  lodged ;  that  he  ought  to  care 
for  them  in  sickness  and  in  old  age,  —  then  political  econ- 
omy will  no  longer  direct  him,  and  the  relations  between 
himself  and  his  dependents  will  have  to  be  arranged  on 
quite  other  principles. 


26  The  Science  of  History. 

So  long  as  he  considers  only  his  own  material  profit,  so 
long  supply  and  demand  will  settle  every  difficulty;  but 
the  introduction  of  a  new  factor  spoils  the  equation. 

And  it  is  precisely  in  this  debatable  ground  of  low  mo- 
tives and  noble  emotions ;  in  the  struggle,  ever  failing  yet 
ever  renewed,  to  carry  truth  and  justice  into  the  adminis- 
tration of  human  society  ;  in  the  establishment  of  states 
and  in  the  overthrow  of  tyrannies  ;  in  the  rise  and  fall  of 
croeds  ;  in  the  world  of  ideas ;  in  the  character  and  deeds 
of  the  great  actors  in  the  drama  of  life,  where  good  and 
evil  fight  out  their  everlasting  battle,  now  ranged  in  oppo- 
site camps,  now  and  more  often  in  the  heart,  both  of  them, 
of  each  living  man,  —  that  the  true  human  interest  of  his- 
tory resides.  The  progress  of  industries,  the  growth  of  ma- 
terial and  mechanical  civilization,  are  interesting  ;  but  they 
are  not  the  most  interesting.  They  have  their  reward  in  the 
increase  of  material  comforts ;  but,  unless  we  are  mistaken 
about  our  nature,  they  do  not  highly  concern  us  after  all. 

Once  more :  not  only  is  there  in  men  this  baffling  duality 
of  principle,  but  there  is  something  else  in  us  which  still 
more  defies  scientific  analysis. 

Mr.  Buckle  would  deliver  himself  from  the  eccentrici- 
ties of  this  and  that  individual  by  a  doctrine  of  averages. 
Though  he  cannot  tell  whether  A,  B,  or  C  will  cut  his 
throat,  he  may  assure  himself  that  one  man  in  every  fifty 
thousand,  or  thereabout  (I  forget  the  exact  proportion), 
will  cut  his  throat,  and  with  this  he  consoles  himself.  No 
doubt  it  is  a  comforting  discovery.  Unfortunately,  the  aver- 
age of  one  generation  need  not  be  the  average  of  the  next. 
We  may  be  converted  by  the  Japanese,  for  all  that  we  know, 
and  the  Japanese  methods  of  taking  leave  of  life  may  become 
fashionable  among  us.  Nay,  did  not  Novalis  siiggest  that 
the  whole  race  of  men  would  at  last  become  so  disgusted 
with  their  impotence,  that  they  wrould  extinguish  themselves 
by  a  simultaneous  act  of  suicide,  and  make  room  for  a  bet- 
ter order  of  beings  ?  Anyhow,  the  fountain  out  of  which 


The  Science  of  History.  27 

the  race  is  flowing  perpetually  changes  ;  no  two  generations 
are  alike.  Whether  there  is  a  change  in  the  organization 
itself  we  cannot  tell ;  but  this  is  certain,  —  that,  as  the 
planet  varies  with  the  atmosphere  which  surrounds  it,  so 
each  new  generation  varies  from  the  last,  because  it  inhales 
as  its  atmosphere  the  accumulated  experience  and  knowl- 
edge of  the  whole  past  of  the  world.  These  things  form 
the  spiritual  air  which  we  breathe  as  we  grow ;  and,  in  the 
infinite  multiplicity  of  elements  of  which  that  air  is  now 
composed,  it  is  forever  matter  of  conjecture  what  the  minds 
will  be  like  Avhich  expand  under  its  influence. 

From  the  England  of  Fielding  and  Richardson  to  .the 
England  of  Miss  Austen,  from  the  England  of  Miss 
Austen  to  the  England  of  Railways  and  Freetrade,  how 
vast  the  change !  Yet  perhaps  Sir  Charles  Grandison  would 
;iot  seem  so  strange  to  us  now  as  one  of  ourselves  will 
seem  to  our  great-grandchildren.  The  world  moves  faster 
and  faster ;  and  the  difference  will  probably  be  considera- 
bly greater. 

The  temper  of  each  new  generation  is  a  continual  sur 
prise.  The  Fates  delight  to  contradict  our  most  confident 
expectations.  Gibbon  believed  that  the  era  of  conquerors 
was  at  an  end.  Had  he  lived  out  the  full  life  of  man,  he 
would  have  seen  Europe  at  the  feet  of  Napoleon.  But  a 
few  years  ago  we  believed  the  world  had  grown  too  civ- 
ilized for  war,  and  the  Crystal  Palace  in  Hyde  Park  was 
to  be  the  inauguration  of  a  new  era.  Battles  bloody  as 
Napoleon's  are  now  the  familiar  tale  of  every  day ;  and 
the  arts  which  have  made  greatest  progress  are  the  arts  of 
destruction.  What  next  ?  We  may  strain  our  eyes  into 
the  future  which  lies  beyond  this  waning  century ;  but 
never  was  conjecture  more  at  fault.  It  is  blank  darkness, 
which  even  the  imagination  fails  to  people. 

What,  then,  is  the  use  of  History,  and  what  are  its  les- 
sons ?  If  it  can  tell  us  little  of  the  past,  and  nothing  of 
the  future,  why  waste  our  time  over  so  barren  a  study? 


28  TJie  Science  of  History. 

First,  it  is  a  voice  forever  sounding  across  the  centuries 
the  laws  of  right  and  wrong.  Opinions  alter,  manners 
change,  creeds  rise  and  fall,  but  the  moral  law  is  written 
on  the  tablets  of  eternity.  For  every  false  word  or  un- 
righteous deed,  for  cruelty  and  oppression,  for  lust  or  van- 
ity, the  price  has  to  be  paid  at  last;  not  always  by  the 
chief  offenders,  but  paid  by  some  one.  Justice  and  truth 
alone  endure  and  live.  Injustice  and  falsehood  may  be 
long-lived,  but  doomsday  comes  at  last  to  them,  in  French 
revolutions  and  other  terrible  ways. 

That  is  one  lesson  of  History.  Another  is,  that  we 
should  draw  no  horoscopes ;  that  we  should  expect  little, 
for  what  we  expect  will  not  come  to  pass.  Revolutions, 
reformations,  —  those  A'ast  movements  into  which  heroes 
and  saints  have  flung  themselves,  in  the  belief  that  they 
were  the  dawn  of  the  millennium,  —  have  not  borne  the 
fruit  which  they  looked  for.  Millenniums  are  still  far 
away.  These  great  convulsions  leave  the  world  changed, 
—  perhaps  improved,  but  not  improved  as  the  actors  in 
them  hoped  it  would  be.  Luther  would  have  gone  to  work 
with  less  heart,  could  he  have  foreseen  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  and  in  the  distance  the  theology  of  Tubingen. 
Washington  might  have  hesitated  to  draw  the  sword 
against  England,  could  he  have  seen  the  country  which  he 
made  as  we  see  it  now.1 

The  most  reasonable  anticipations  fail  us,  antecedents 
the  most  apposite  mislead  us,  because  the  conditions  of 
human  problems  never  repeat  themselves.  Some  new  feat- 
ure alters  every  thing,  —  some  element  which  we  detect 
only  in  its  after-operation. 

But  this,  it  may  be  said,  is  but  a  meagre  outcome.  Can 
the  long  records  of  humanity,  with  all  its  joys  and,  sorrows, 
its  sufferings  and  its  conquests,  teach  us  no  more  than 
this  ?  Let  us  approach  the  subject  from  another  side. 

If  you  were  asked  to  point  out  the  special  features  ilk 

1  /ebruary,  1864. 


The  Science  of  History.  29 

which  Shakespeare's  plays  are  so  transcendently  excellent, 
you  would  mention  perhaps,  among  others,  this,  — that  his 
stories  are  not  put  together,  and  his  characters  are  not  con- 
ceived, to  illustrate  any  particular  law  or  principle.  They 
teach  many  lessons,  but  not  any  one  prominent  above 
another ;  and,  when  we  have  drawn  from  them  all  the  di- 
*rect  instruction  which  they  contain,  there  remains  still 
something  unresolved,  —  something  which  the  artist  gives, 
and  which  the  philosopher  cannot  give. 

It  is  in  this  characteristic  that  we  are  accustomed  to  say 
Shakespeare's  supreme  truth  lies.  He  represents  real  life. 
His  dramas  teach  as  life  teaches,  —  neither  less  nor  more. 
He  builds  his  fabrics,  as  Nature  does,  on  right  and  wrong ; 
but  he  does  not  struggle  to  make  Nature  more  systematic 
than  she  is.  In  the  subtle  interflow  of  good  and  evil ;  in 
the  unmerited  sufferings  of  innocence  ;  in  the  dispropor- 
tion of  penalties  to  desert ;  in  the  seeming  blindness  with 
which  justice,  in  attempting  to  assert  itself,  overwhelms 
innocent  and  guilty  in  a  common  ruin,  —  Shakespeare  is 
true  to  real  experience.  The  mystery  of  life  he  leaves  as 
he  finds  it ;  and,  in  his  most  tremendous  positions,  he  is 
addressing  rather  the  intellectual  emotions  than  the  un- 
derstanding, —  knowing  well  that  the  understanding  in 
such  things  is  at  fault,  and  the  sage  as  ignorant  as  the 
child. 

Only  the-highest  order  of  genius  can  represent  Nature 
thus.  An  inferior  artist  produces  either  something  en- 
tirely immoral,  where  good  and  evil  are  names,  and  nobil- 
ity of  disposition  is  supposed  to  show  itself  in  the  absolute 
disregard  of  them,  or  else,  if  he  is  a  better  kind  of  man, 
he  will  force  on  Nature  a  didactic  purpose  ;  he  composes 
what  are  called  moral  tales,  which  may  edify  the  conscience, 
but  only  mislead  the  intellect. 

The  finest  work  of  this  kind  produced  in  modern  times 
is  Lessing's  play  of  "  Nathan  the  Wise."  The  object  of 
it  is  to  teach  religious  toleration.  The  doctrine  is  aclmir- 


30  The  Science  of  History. 

able,  the  mode  in  which  it  is  enforced  is  interesting ;  but 
it  has  the  fatal  fault  that  it  is  not  true.  Nature  does  not 
teach  religious  toleration  by  any  such  direct  method  ;  and 
the  result  is  —  no  one  knew  it  better  than  Lessing  himself 
—  that  the  play  is  not  poetry,  but  only  splendid  manufac- 
ture. Shakespeare  is  eternal ;  Lessing's  "  Nathan  "  will 
pass  away  with  the  mode  of  thought  which  gave  it  birtht 
One  is  based  on  fact ;  the  other,  on  human  theory  about 
fact.  The  theory  seems  at  first  sight  to  contain  the  most 
immediate  instruction  ;  but  it  is  not  really  so. 

Gibber  and  others,  as  you  know,  wanted  to  alter  Shakes- 
peare. The  French  king,  in  "  Lear,"  was  to  be  got  rid  of ; 
Cordelia  was  to  marry  Edgar,  and  Lear  himself  was  to  be 
rewarded  for  his  sufferings  by  a  golden  old  age.  They 
could  not  bear  that  Hamlet  should  suffer  for  the  sins  of 
Claudius.  The  wicked  king  was  to  die,  and  the  wicked 
mother ;  and  Hamlet  and  Ophelia  were  to  make  a  match 
of  it,  and  live  happily  ever  after.  A  common  novelist 
would  have  arranged  it  thus ;  and  you  would  have  had  your 
comfortable  moral  that  wickedness  was  fitly  punished,  and 
virtue  had  its  due  reward,  and  all  would  have  been  well. 
But  Shakespeare  would  not  have  it  so.  Shakespeare  knew 
that  crime  was  not  so  simple  in  its  consequences,  or  Prov- 
idence so  paternal.  He  was  contented  to  take  the  truth 
from  life  ;  and  the  effect  upon  the  mind  of  the  most  cor- 
rect theory  of  what  life  ought  to  be,  compared»to  the  effect 
of  the  life  itself,  is  infinitesimal  in  comparison. 

Again,  let  us  compare  the  popular  historical  treatment 
of  remarkable  incidents  with  Shakespeare's  treatment  of 
them.  Look  at  "Macbeth."  You  may  derive  abundant 
instruction  from  it,  —  instruction  of  many  kinds.  There  is 
a  moral  lesson  of  profound  interest  in  the  steps  by  which 
a  noble  nature  glides  to  perdition.  In  more  modern  fash- 
ion you  may  speculate,  if  you  like,  on  the  political  condi- 
tions represented  there,  and  the  temptation  presented  in 
absolute  monarchies  to  unscrupulous  ambition  ;  yon  may 


t  Science  of  History.  31 

say,  like  Doctor  Slop,  these  things  could  not  have  happened 
under  a  constitutional  government :  or,  again,  you  may 
take  up  your  parable  against  superstition  ;  you  may  dilate 
on  the  frightful  consequences  of  a  belief  in  witches,  and 
reflect  on  the  superior  advantages  of  an  age  of  schools  and 
newspapers.  If  the  bare  facts  of  the  story  had  come 
down  to  us  from  a  chronicler,  and  an  ordinary  writer  of 
the  nineteenth  century  had  undertaken  to  relate  them,  his 
account,  we  may  depend  upon  it,  would  have  been  put  to- 
gether upon  one  or  other  of  these  principles.  Yet,  by  the 
side  of  that  unfolding  of  the  secrets  of  the  prison-house 
of  the  soul,  what  lean  and  shriveled  anatomies  the  best  of 
such  descriptions  would  seem ! 

Shakespeare  himself,  I  suppose,  could  not  have  given  us 
a  theory  of  what  he  meant ;  he  gave  us  the  thing  itself,  on 
which  we  might  make  whatever  theories  we  pleased. 

Or,  again,  look  at  Homer. 

The  "  Iliad  "  is  from  two  to  three  thousand  years  older 
than  "  Macbeth,"  and  yet  it  is  as  fresh  as  if  it  had  been 
written  yesterday.  "We  have  there  no  lesson  save  in  the 
emotions  which  rise  in  us  as  we  read.  Homer  had  no 
philosophy  ;  he  never  struggles  to  press  upon  us  his  views 
about  this  or  that;  you  can  scarcely  tell,  indeed,  whether 
his  sympathies  are  Greek  or  Trojan :  but  he  represents  to 
us  faithfully  the  men  and  women  among  whom  he  lived. 
He  sang  the  tale  of  Troy,  he  touched  his  lyre,  he  drained 
the  golden  beaker  in  the  halls  of  men  like  those  on  whom 
he  was  conferring  immortality.  And  thus,  although  no 
Agamemnon,  king  of  men,  ever  led  a  Grecian  fleet  to 
Ilium ;  though  no  Priam  sought  the  midnight  tent  of 
Achilles ;  though  Ulysses  and  Diomed  and  Nestor  were 
but  names,  and  Helen  but  a  dream,  yet,  through  Homer's 
power  of  representing  men  and  women,  those  old  Greeks 
will  still  stand  out  from  amidst  the  darkness  of  the  ancient 
world  with  a  sharpness  of  outline  which  belongs  to  no 
period  of  history  except  the  most  recent.  For  the  mere 


32  Tlie  Science  of  History. 

hard  purposes  of  history,  the  "  Iliad  "  and  <;  Odyssey  "  are 
the  most  effective  books  which  ever  were  written.  We 
see  the  hall  of  Menelaus,  we  see  the  garden  of  Alcinous, 
we  see  Nausicaa  among  her  maidens  on  the  shore,  we  see 
the  mellow  monarch  sitting  with  ivory  sceptre  in  the  mar- 
ket-place dealing  out  genial  justice.  Or,  again,  when  the 
wild  mood  is  on,  we  can  hear  the  crash  of  the  spears,  the 
rattle  of  the  armor  as  the  heroes  fall,  and  the  plunging  of 
the  horses  among  the  slain.  Could  we  enter  the  palace  of 
an  old  Ionian  lord,  we  know  what  we  should  see  there ;  we 
know  the  words  in  which  he  would  address  us.  We  could 
meet  Hector  as  a  friend.  If  we  could  choose  a  companion 
to  spend  an  evening  with  over  a  fireside,  it  would  be  the 
man  of  many  counsels,  the  husband  of  Penelope. 

I  am  not  going  into  the  vexed  question  whether  History 
or  Poetry  is  the  more  true.  It  has  been  sometimes  said 
that  Poetry  is  the  more  true,  because  it  can  make  things 
more  like  what  our  moral  sense  would  prefer  they  should 
be.  We  hear  of  poetic  justice  and  the  like,  as  if  nature 
and  fact  were  not  just  enough. 

I  entirely  dissent  from  that  view.  So  far  as  Poetry  at- 
tempts to  improve  on  truth  in  that  way,  so  far  it  abandons 
truth,  and  is  false  to  itself.  Even  literal  facts,  exactly  as 
they  were,  a  great  poet  will  prefer  whenever  he  can  get 
them.  Shakespeare  in  the  historical  plays  is  studious, 
wherever  possible,  to  give  the  very  words  which  he  finds 
to  have  been  used ;  and  it  shows  how  wisely  he  was  guided 
in  this,  that  those  magnificent  speeches  of  Wolsey  are 
taken  exactly,  with  no  more  change  than  the  metre  makes 
necessary,  from  Cavendish's  Life.  Marlborough  read 
Shakespeare  for  English  history,  and  read  nothing  else. 
The  poet  only  is  not  bound,  when  it  is  inconvenient,  to 
what  may  be  called  the  accidents  of  facts.  It  was  enough 
for  Shakespeare  to  know  that  Prince  Hal  in  his  youth  had 
lived  among  loose  companions,  and  the  tavern  in  Eastcheap 
came  in  to  fill  out  his  picture ;  although  Mrs.  Quickly  and 


The  Science  of  History.  33 

Falstaff,  and  Poins  and  Bardolph,  were  more  likely  to  have 
been  fallen  in  with  by  Shakespeare  himself  at  the  Mer- 
maid, than  to  have  been  comrades  of  the  true  Prince 
Henry.  It  was  enough  for  Shakespeare  to  draw  real  men, 
and  the  situation,  whatever  it  might  be,  would  sit  easy  on 
them.  In  this  sense  only  it  is  that  Poetry  is  truer  than 
History,  —  that  it  can  make  a  picture  more  complete.  It 
may  take  liberties  with  time  and  space,  and  give  the  action 
distinctness  by  throwing  it  into  more  manageable  compass. 
But  it  may  not  alter  the  real  conditions  of  things,  or 
represent  life  as  other  than  it  is.  The  greatness  of  the 
poet  depends  on  his  being  true  to  Nature,  without  insisting 
that  Nature  shall  theorize  with  him,  without  making  her 
more  just,  more  philosophical,  more  moral  than  reality  ; 
and,  in  difficult  matters,  leaving  much  to  reflection  which 
cannot  be  explained. 

And  if  this  be  true  of  Poetry  —  if  Homer  and  Shakes- 
peare are  what  they  are  from  the  absence  of  every  thing 
didactic  about  them  —  may  we  not  thus  learn  something 
of  what  History  should  be,  and  in  what  sense  it  should  as- 
pire to  teach  ? 

If  Poetry  must  not  theorize,  much  less  should  the  his- 
torian theorize,  whose  obligations  to  be  true  to  fact  are 
even  greater  than  the  poet's.  If  the  drama  is  grandest 
when  the  action  is  least  explicable  by  laws,  because  then  it 
best  resembles  life,  then  history  will  be  grandest  also  under 
the  same  conditions.  "  Macbeth,"  were  it  literally  true, 
would  be  perfect  history ;  and  so  far  as  the  historian  can 
approach  to  that  kind  of  model,  so  far  as  he  can  let  his 
story  tell  itself  in  the  deeds  and  words  of  those  who  act  it 
out,  so  far  is  he  most  successful.  His  work  is  no  longer 
the  vapor  of  his  own  brain,  which  a  breath  will  scatter  ;  it 
is  the  thing  itself,  which  will  have  interest  for  all  time.  A 
thousand  theories  may  be  formed  about  it,  —  spiritual 
theories,  Pantheistic  theories,  cause  and  effect  theories ; 
but  each  age  will  have  its  own  philosophy  of  history,  and 
3 


34  The  Science  of  History. 

all  these  in  turn  will  fail  and  die.  Hegel  falls  out  of  date, 
Schlegel  falls  out  of  date,  and  Corate  in  good  time  will  fall 
out  of  date  ;  the  thought  about  the  thing  must  change  as 
we  change :  hut  the  thing  itself  can  never  change ;  and  a 
history  is  durable  or  perishable  as  it  contains  more  or  least 
of  the  writer's  own  speculations.  The  splendid  intellect  of 
Gibbon  for  the  most  part  kept  him  true  to  the  right  course 
in  this ;  yet  the  philosophical  chapters  for  which  he  has 
been  most  admired  or  censured  may  hereafter  be  thought 
the  least  interesting  in  his  work.  The  time  has  been  when 
they  would  not  have  been  comprehended :  the  time  may 
come  when  they  will  seem  commonplace. 

It  may  be  said,  that,  in  requiring  history  to  be  written 
like  a  drama,  we  require  an  impossibility. 

For  history  to  be  written  with  the  complete  form  of  a 
drama,  doubtless  is  impossible  :  but  there  are  periods,  and 
these  the  periods,  for  the  most  part,  of  greatest  interest  to 
mankind,  the  history  of  which  may  be  so  written  that  the 
actors  shall  reveal  their  characters  in  their  own  words ; 
where  mind  can  be  seen  matched  against  mind,  and  the 
great  passions  of  the  epoch  not  simply  be  described  as  ex- 
isting, but  be  exhibited  at  their  white  heat,  in  the  souls  and 
hearts  possessed  by  them.  There  are  all  the  elements  of 
drama  —  drama  of  the  highest  order  —  where  the  huge 
forces  of  the  times  are  as  the  Grecian  destiny,  and  the 
power  of  the  man  is  seen  either  stemming  the  stream  till 
it  overwhelms  him,  or  ruling  while  he  seems  to  yield  to  it. 
It  is  Nature's  drama,  —  not  Shakespeare's,  but  a 
drama  none  the  less. 

So  at  least  it  seems  to  me.  Wherever  possible,  let  us 
not  be  told  about  this  man  or  that.  Let  us  hear  the  man 
himself  speak,  let  us  see  him  act,  and  let  us  be  left  to 
form  our  own  opinions  about  him.  The  historian,  we  are 
told,  must  not  leave  his  readers  to  themselves.  He  must 
not  only  lay  the  facts  before  them:  he  must  tell  them 
what  he  himself  thinks  about  those  facts.  In  my  opinion, 


The  Science  of  History,  35 

this  is  precisely  what  he  ought  not  to  do.  Bishop  Butler 
says  somewhere,  that  the  best  book  which  could  be  written 
would  be  a  book  consisting  only  of  premises,  from  which 
the  readers^should  draw  conclusions  for  themselves.  The 
highest  poetry  is  the  very  thing  which  Butler  requires,  and 
the  highest  history  ought  to  be.  We  should  no  more  ask 
for  a  theory  of  this  or  that  period  of  history,  than  we 
should  ask  for  a  theory  of  "Macbeth"  or  "Hamlet." 
Philosophies  of  history,  sciences  of  history,  —  all  these 
there  will  continue  to  be :  the  fashions  of  them  will 
change,  as  our  habits  of  thought  will  change  ;  each  new 
philosopher  will  find  his  chief  employment  in  showing  that 
before  him  no  one  understood  any  thing  ;  but  the  drama 
of  history  is  imperishable,  and  the  lessons  of  it  will  be  like 
what  we  learn  from  Homer  or  Shakespeare,  —  lessons  for 
which  we  have  no  words. 

The  address  of  history  is  less  to  the  understanding  than 
to  the  higher  emotions.  We  learn  in  it  to  sympathize  with 
what  is  great  and  good ;  we  learn  to  hate  what  is  base. 
In  the  anomalies  of  fortune  we  feel  the  mystery  of  out 
mortal  existence  ;  and  in  the  companionship  of  the  illustri- 
ous natures  who  have  shaped  the  fortunes  of  the  world,  we 
escape  from  the  littlenesses  which  cling  to  the  round  of 
common  life,  and  our  minds  are  tuned  in  a  higher  and 
nobler  key. 

For  the  rest,  and  for  those  large  questions  which  I 
touched  in  connection  with  Mr.  Buckle,  we  live  in  times 
of  disintegration,  and  none  can  tell  what  will  be  after  us. 
What  opinions,  what  convictions,  the  infant  of  to-day 
will  find  prevailing  on  the  earth,  if  he  and  it  live  out  to- 
gether to  the  middle  of  another  century,  only  a  very  bold 
man  would  undertake  to  conjecture.  "  The  time  will 
come,"  said  Lichtenberg,  in  scorn  at  the  materializing  tend- 
encies of  modern  thought,  —  "  the  time  will  come  when  the 
belief  in  God  will  be  as  the  tales  with  which  old  women 
frighten  children ;  when  the  world  wilt  be  a  machine,  the 


86  The  Science  of  History. 

ether  a  gas,  and  God  will  be  a  force."  Mankind,  if  they 
last  long  enough  on  the  earth,  may  develop  strange  things 
out  of  themselves ;  and  the  growth  of  what  is  called  the 
Positive  Philosophy  is  a  curious  commentary  on  Lichten- 
berg's  prophecy.  But  whether  the  end  be  seventy  years 
hence,  or  seven  hundred,  —  be  the  close  of  the  mortal  his- 
tory of  humanity  as  far  distant  in  the  future  as  its  shadowy 
beginnings  seem  now  to  lie  behind  us,  —  this  only  we  may 
foretell  with  confidence,  —  that  the  riddle  of  man's  nature 
will  remain  unsolved.  There  will  be  that  in  him  yet  which 
physical  laws  will  fail  to  explain,  —  that  something,  what- 
ever it  be,  in  himself  and  in  the  world,  which  science  can- 
not fathom,  and  which  suggests  the  unknown  possibilities 
of  his  origin  and  his  destiny.  There  will  remain  yet 

"  Those  obstinate  questionings 
Of  sense  and  outward  things ; 
Falling  from  us,  vanishings ; 
Blank  misgivings  of  a  creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realized ; 
High  instincts,  before  which  our/nortal  nature 
Doth  tremble  like  a  guilty  thing  surprised." 

There  will  remain 

->  "  Thqse  first  affections. 

Those  shadowy  recollections, 
Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain-light  of  all  our  day,  — 
Are  yet  the  master-light  of  all  our  seeing,  — 
Uphold  us,  cherish,  and  have  power  to  make 
Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the  being 
Of  the  Eternal  Silence." 


1IMES  OF   ERASMUS  AND  LUTHER; 

THREE  LECTURES  DELIVERED  AT  NEWCASTLE,  1867. 

LECTURE  I. 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN,  —  I  do  not  know  whether  I 
have  made  a  very  wise  selection  in  the  subject  which  I 
have  chosen  for  these  Lectures.  There  was  a  time  —  a 
time  which,  measured  by  the  years  of  our  national  life,  was 
not  so  very  long  ago  —  when  the  serious  thoughts  of  man- 
kind were  occupied  exclusively  by  religion  and  politics. 
The  small  knowledge  which  they  possessed  of  other  things 
was  tinctured  by  their  speculative  opinions  on  the  relations 
of  heaven  and  earth ;  and,  down  to  the  sixteenth  century, 
art,  science,  scarcely  even  literature,  existed  in  this  coun- 
try, except  as,  in  some  way  or  other,,  subordinate  to  theol- 
ogy. Philosophers  —  such  philosophers  as  there  were  — 
obtained  and  half  deserved  the  reputation  of  quacks  and 
conjurors.  Astronomy  was  confused  with  astrology.  The 
physician's  medicines  were  supposed  to  be  powerless,  unless 
the  priests  said  prayers  over  them.  The  great  lawyers,  the 
ambassadors,  the  chief  ministers  of  state,  were  generally 
bishops  ;  even  the  fighting  business  was  not  entirely  secu- 
lar. Half  a  dozen  Scotch  prelates  were  killed  at  Flodden  ; 
and,  late  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  no  fitter  person 
could  be  found  than  Rowland  Lee,  Bishop  of  Coventry,  to 
take  command  of  the  Welsh  Marches,  and  harry  the  free- 
booters of  Llangollen. 

Every  single  department  of  intellectual  or  practical  life 


38  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

was  penetrated  with  the  beliefs,  or  was  interwoven  with  the 
interests,  of  the  clergy ;  and  thus  it  was  that,  when  differ- 
ences of  religious  opinion  arose,  they  split  society  to  its 
foundations.  The  lines  of  cleavage  penetrated  everywhere, 
and  there  were  no  subjects  whatever  in  which  those  who 
disagreed  in  theology  possessed  any  common  concern. 
When  men  quarreled,  they  quarreled  altogether.  The 
disturbers  of  settled  beliefs  were  regarded  as  public  ene- 
mies who  had  placed  themselves  beyond  the  pale  of  human- 
ity, and  were  considered  fit  only  to  be  destroyed  like  wild 
beasts,  or  trampled  out  like  the  seed  of  a  contagion. 

Three  centuries  have  passed  over  our  heads  since  the 
time  of  which  I  am  speaking,  and  the  world  is  so  changed 
that  we  can  hardly  recognize  it  as  the  same. 

The  secrets  of  nature  have  been  opened  out  to  us  on  a 
thousand  lines ;  and  men  of  science  of  all  creeds  can  pur- 
sue side  by  side  their  common  investigations.  Catholics, 
Anglicans,  Presbyterians,  Lutherans,  Calvinists,  contend 
with  each  other  in  honorable  rivalry  in  arts  and  literature 
and  commerce  and  industry.  They  read  the  same  books. 
They  study  at  the  same  academies.  They  have  seats  in 
the  same  senates.  They  preside  together  on  the  judicial 
bench,  and  carry  on,  without  jar  or  difference,  the  ordinary 
business  of  the  country. 

Those  who  share  the  same  pursuits  are  drawn  in  spite 
of  themselves  into  sympathy  and  good-will.  When  they 
are  in  harmony  in  so  large  a  part  of  their  occupations,  the 
points  of  remaining  difference  lose  their  venom.  Those 
who  thought  they  hated  each  other,  unconsciously  find 
themselves  friends ;  and,  as  far  as  it  affects  the  world  at 
large,  the  acrimony  of  controversy  has  almost  disappeared. 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  a  person  being  now  put  to  death  for 
a  speculative  theological  opinion.  You  feel  at  once,  that,  in 
the  most  bigoted  country  in  the  world,  such  a  thing  has 
become  impossible ;  and  the  impossibility  is  the  measure 
of  the  alteration  which  we  have  all  undergone.  The  formu 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  39 

las  remain  as  they  were  on  either  side,  —  the  very  same 
formulas  which  were  once  supposed  to  require  these  de- 
testable murders.  But  we  have  learned  to  know  each 
other  better.  The  cords  which  bind  together  the  brother- 
hood of  mankind  are  woven  of  a  thousand  strands.  We 
do  not  any  more  fly  apart  or  become  enemies  because, 
here  and  there,  in  one  strand  out  of  so  many,  there  are 
still  unsound  places. 

If  I  were  asked  for  a  distinct  proof  that  Europe  was  im- 
proving and  not  retrograding,  I  should  find  it  in  this  phe- 
nomenon. It  has  not  been  brought  about  by  controversy. 
Men  are  fighting  still  over  the  same  questions  which  they 
began  to  fight  about  at  the  Reformation.  Protestant 
divines  have  not  driven  Catholics  out  of  the  field,  nor 
Catholics  Protestants.  Each  polemic  writes  for  his  own 
partisans,  and  makes  no  impression  on  his  adversary. 

Controversy  has  kept  alive  a  certain  quantity  of  bitter- 
ness ;  and  that,  I  suspect,  is  all  that  it  would  accomplish  if 
it  continued  till  the  day  of  judgment.  I  sometimes,  in  im- 
patient moments,  wish  the  laity  in  Europe  would  treat  their 
controversial  divines  as  two  gentlemen  once  treated  their 
seconds,  when  they  found  themselves  forced  into  a  duel 
without  knowing  what  they  were  quarreling  about. 

As  the  principals  were  being  led  up  to  their  places,  one 
of  them  whispered  to  the  other,  "-If  you  will  shoot  your 
second,  I  will  shoot  mine." 

The  reconciliation  of  parties,  if  I  may  use  such  a  word, 
is  no  tinkered-up  truce,  or  convenient  Interim.  It  is  the 
healthy,  silent,  spontaneous  growth  of  a  nobler  order  of 
conviction,  which  has  conquered  our  prejudices  even  before 
we  knew  that  they  were  assailed.  This  better  spirit  espe- 
cially is  represented  in  institutions  like  this,  which  acknowl- 
edge no  differences  of  creed,  which  are  constructed  on 
the  broadest  principles  of  toleration,  and  which,  there- 
fore, as  a  rule,  are  wisely  protected  from  the  intrusion  of 
discordant  subjects. 


40  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

They  exist,  as  I  understand,  to  draw  men  together,  not 
to  divide  them,  —  to  enable  us  to  share  together  in  those 
topics  of  universal  interest  and  instruction  which  all  can 
take  pleasure  in,  and  which  give  offence  to  none. 

If  you  ask  me,  then,  why  I  am  myself  departing  from  a 
practice  which  I  admit  to  be  so  excellent,  I  fear  that  I  shall 
give  you  rather  a  lame  answer.  I  might  say  that  I  know 
more  about  the  history  of  the  sixteenth  century  than  I  know 
about  any  thing  else.  I  have  spent  the  best  years  of  my 
life  in  reading  and  writing  about  it ;  and  if  I  have  any  thing 
to  tell  you  worth  your  hearing,  it  is  probably  on  that  subject. 

Or,  again,  I  might  say  —  which  is  indeed  most  true  — 
that  to  the  Reformation  we  can  trace,  indirectly,  the  best 
of  those  very  influences  which  I  have -been  describing. 
The  "Reformation  broke  the  theological  shackles  in  which 
men's  minds  were  fettered.  It  set  them  thinking,  and  so 
gave  birth  to  science.  The  Reformers  also,  without  know- 
ing what  they  were  about,  taught  the  lesson  of  religious 
toleration.  They  attempted  to  supersede  one  set  of  dog- 
mas by  another.  They  succeeded  with  half  the  world  ; 
they  failed  with  the  other  half.  In  a  little  while  it  became 
apparent  that  good  men,  without  ceasing  to  be  good, 
could  think  differently  about  theology ;  and  that  goodness, 
therefore,  depended  on  something  else  than  the  holding 
orthodox  opinions.' 

It  is  not,  however,  for  either  of  these  reasons  that  I  am 
going  to  talk  to  you  about  Martin  Luther ;  nor  is  tolera- 
tion of  differences  and  opinion,  however  excellent  it  be, 
the  point  on  which  I  shall  dwell  in  these  Lectures. 

Were  the  Reformation  a  question  merely  of  opinion,  I 
for  one  should  not  have  meddled  with  it,  either  here  or 
anywhere.  I  hold  that,  on  the  obscure  mysteries  of  faith, 
every  one  should  be  allowed  to  believe  according  to  his 
conscience,  and  that  arguments  on  such  matters  are  either 
impertinent  or  useless. 

But  the  Reformation,  gentlemen,  beyond  the  region  of 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  41 

opinions,  was  a  historical  fact,  —  an  objective  something 
•tfhich  may  be  studied  like  any  of  the  facts  of  nature. 
The  Reformers  were  men  of  note  and  distinction,  who 
played  a  great  part  for  good  or  evil  on  the  stage  of  the 
world.  If  we  except  the  Apostles,  no  body  of  human 
beings  ever  printed  so  deep  a  mark  into  the  organization 
of  society  ;  and,  if  there  be  any  value  or  meaning  in  his- 
tory at  all,  the  lives,  the  actions,  the  characters  of  such 
men  as  these  can  be  matters  of  indifference  to  none  of  us. 

We  have  not  to  do  with  a  story  which  is  buried  in  ob- 
scure antiquity.  The  facts  admit  of  being  learnt.  The 
truth,  whatever  it  was,  concerns  us  all  equally.  If  the  di- 
visions created  by  that  great  convulsion  are  ever  to  be  ob- 
literated, it  will  be  when  we  have  learnt,  each  of  us,  to  see 
the  thing  as  it  really  was,  and  not  rather  some  mythical  or 
imaginative  version  of  the  thing,  such  as  from  our  own 
point  of  view  we  like  to  think  it  was.  Fiction  in  such 
matters  may  be  convenient  for  our  immediate  theories,  but 
it  is  certain  to  avenge  itself  in  the  end.  We  may  make 
our  own  opinions,  but  facts  were  made  for  us  ;  and,  if  we 
evade  or  deny  them,  it  will  be  the  worse  for  us. 

Unfortunately,  the  mythical  version  at  present  very 
largely  preponderates.  Open  a  Protestant  history  of  the 
Reformation,  and  you  find  a  picture  of  the  world  given 
over  to  a  lying  tyranny,  the  Christian  population  of  Eu- 
rope enslaved  by  a  corrupt  and  degraded  priesthood,  and 
the  Reformers,  with  the  Bible  in  their  hands,  coming  to 
the  rescue  like  angels  of  light.  All  is  black  on  one  side  ; 
all  is  fair  and  beautiful  on  the  other. 

Turn  to  a  Catholic  history  of  the  same  events  and  the 
same  men,  and  we  have  before  us  the  Church  of  the 
Saints  fulfilling  quietly  its  blessed  mission  in  the  saving  of 
human  souls.  Satan  a  second  time  enters  into  Paradise, 
and  a  second  time  with  fatal  success  tempts  miserable  man 
to  his  ruin.  He  disbelieves  his  appointed  teachers,  he 
aspires  after  forbidden  knowledge,  and  at  once  anarchy 


42  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

breaks  loose.  The  seamless  robe  of  the  Saviour  is  rent  in 
pieces,  and  the  earth  becomes  the  habitation  of  fiends. 

Each  side  tells  the  story  as  it  prefers  to  have  it ;  facts, 
characters,  circumstances,  are  melted  in  the  theological 
crucible,  and  cast  in  moulds  diametrically  opposite.  Noth- 
ing remains  the  same  except  the  names  and  dates.  Each 
side  chooses  its  own  Avitnesses.  Exery  thing  is  credible 
which  makes  for  what  it  calls  the  truth.  Every  thing  is 
made  false  which  will  not  fit  into  its  place.  "  Blasphemous 
fables  "  is  the  usual  expression  in  Protestant  controversial 
books  for  the  accounts  given  by  Catholics.  "  Protestant 
tradition,"  says  an  eminent  modern  Catholic,  "  is  based  on 
lying,  —  bold,  wholesale,  unscrupulous  lying." 

Now,  depend  upon  it,  there  is  some  human  account  of 
the  matter  different  from  both  these,  if  we  could  only  get 
at  it,  and  it  will  be  an  excellent  thing  for  the  world  when 
that  human  account  can  be  made  out.  I  am  not  so  pre  - 
sumptuous  as  to  suppose  that  I  can  give  it  to  you;  still  less 
can  you  expect  me  to  try  to  do  so  within  the  compass  of 
two  or  three  lectures.  If  I  cannot  do  every  thing,  however 
I  believe  I  can  do  a  little ;  at  any  rate,  I  can  give  you  a 
sketch,  such  as  you  may  place  moderate  confidence  in,  of 
the  state  of  the  Church  as  it  was  before  the  Reformation 
began.  I  will  not  expose  myself  more  than  I  can  help  to 
the  censure  of  the  divine  who  was  so  hard  on  Protestant 
tradition.  Most  of  what  I  shall  have  to  say  to  you  this 
evening  will  be  taken  from  the  admissions  of  Catholics 
themselves,  or  from  official  records  earlier  than  the  out- 
break of  the  controversy,  when  there  was  no  temptation  to 
pervert  the  truth. 

Here,  obviously,  is  the  first  point  on  which  we  require 
accurate  information.  If  all  was  going  on  well,  the  Re« 
formers  really  and  truly  told  innumerable  lies,  and  deserve 
all  the  reprobation  which  we  can  give  them.  If  all  was 
not  going  on  well,  —  if,  so  far  from  being  well,  the  Church 
was  so  corrupt  that  Europe  could  bear  with  it  no  longer,  — 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  43 

then  clearly  a  Refonnation  was  necessary  of  some  kind ; 
and  we  have  taken  one  step  towards  a  fair  estimate  of  the 
persons  concerned  in  it. 

A  fair  estimate,  —  that,  and  only  that,  is  what  we  want. 
I  need  hardly  observe  to  you,  that  opinion  in  England  has 
been  undergoing  lately  a  very  considerable  alteration  about 
these  persons. 

Two  generations  ago,  the  leading  Reformei's  were  looked 
upon  as  little  less  than  saints :  now  a  party  has  risen  up 
who  intend,  as  they  frankly  tell  us,  to  un-Protestantize  the 
Church  of  England  ;  who  detest  Protestantism  as  a  kind  of 
infidelity ;  who  desire  simply  to  reverse  every  thing  which 
the  Reformers  did. 

One  of  these  gentlemen,  a  clergyman,  writing  lately  of 
Luther,  called  him  a  heretic,  a  heretic  fit  only  to  be  ranked 
with  —  whom  do  you  think  ?  Joe  Smith  the  Mormon 
Prophet.  Joe  Smith  and  Luther,  —  that  is  the  combina- 
tion with  which  we  are  now  presented. 

The  book  in  which  this  remarkable  statement  appeared 
was  presented  by  two  bishops  to  the  Upper  House  of  Con- 
vocation. It  was  received  with  gracious  acknowledgments 
by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  was  placed  solemnly 
in  the  library  of  reference,  for  that  learned  body  to  con- 
sult. 

So,  too,  a  professor  at  Oxford,  the  other  day,  spoke  of 
Luther  as  a  Philistine,  —  a  "  Philistine  "  meaning  an  op- 
pressor of  the  chosen  people  ;  the  enemy  of  men  of  culture, 
of  intelligence,  such  as  the  professor  himself. 

One  notices  these  things,  not  as  of  much  importance  in 
themselves,  but  as  showing  which  way  the  stream  is  run- 
ning ;  and,  curiously  enough,  in  quite  another  direction  we 
may  see  the  same  phenomenon.  Our  liberal  philosophers, 
men  of  high  literary  power  and  reputation,  looking  into 
the  history  of  Luther  and  Calvin  and  John  Knox  and 
the  rest,  find  them  falling  far  short  of  the  philosophic  ideal, 
—  wanting  sadly  in  many  qualities  which  the  liberal  mind 


44  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

cannot  dispense  with.  They  are  discovered  to  be  intolcr 
ant,  dogmatic,  narrow-minded,  inclined  to  persecute  Cath- 
olics as  Catholics  had  persecuted  them  ;  to  be,  in  fact,  little 
if  at  all  better  than  the  popes  and  cardinals  whom  they 
were  fighting  against. 

Lord  Macaulay  can  hardly  find  epithets  strong  enough 
to  express  his  contempt  for  Archbishop  Cranmer.  Mr. 
Buckle  places  Cranmer  by  the  side  of  Bonner,  and  hesi- 
tates which  of  the  two  characters  is  the  more  detestable. 

An  unfavorable  estimate  of  the  Reformers,  whether  just 
or  unjust,  is  unquestionably  gaining  ground  among  our  ad- 
vanced thinkers.  A  greater  man  than  either  Macaulay  or 
Buckle  —  the  German  poet,  Goethe  —  says  of  Luther, 
that  he  threw  back  the  intellectual  progress  of  mankind 
for  centuries,  by  calling  in  the  passions  of  the  multitude 
to  decide  on  subjects  which  ought  to  have  been  left  to  the 
learned.  Goethe,  in  saying  this,  was  alluding  especially  to 
Erasmus.  Goethe  thought  that  Erasmus,  and  men  like 
Erasmus,  had  struck  upon  the  right  track  ;  and,  if  they  could 
have  retained  the  direction  of  the  mind  of  Europe,  there 
would  have  been  more  truth,  and  less  falsehood,  among  us 
at  this  present  time.  The  party  hatreds,  the  theological 
rivalries,  the  persecutions,  the  civil  wars,  the  religious  an- 
imosities, which  have  so  long  distracted  us,  would  have 
been  all  avoided,  and  the  mind  of  mankind  would  have  ex- 
panded gradually  and  equally  with  the  growth  of  knowl- 
edge. 

Such  an  opinion,  coming  from  so  great  a  man,  is  not  to 
be  lightly  passed  over.  It  will  fee  my  endeavor  to  show 
you  what  kind  of  man  Erasmus  was,  what  he  was  aiming 
at,  what  he  was  doing,  and  how  Luther  spoilt  his  work, 
if  u  spoiling  "  is  the  word  which  we  are  to  us</  for  it 

One  caution,  however,  I  must  in  fairness  give  you  be- 
fore we  proceed  further.  It  lies  u^on  the  face  of  the  story 
that  the  Reformers  imperfectly  understood  toleration  ;  but 
you  must  keep  before  you  the  spirit  and  temper  of  the 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  46 

men  with  whom  they  had  to  deal.  For  themselves,  when 
the  movement  began,  they  aimed  at  nothing  but  liberty  to 
think  and  speak  their  own  way.  They  never  dreamed  of 
interfering  with  others,  although  they  were  quite  aware 
that  others,  when  they  could,  were  likely  to  interfere  with 
them.  Lord  Macaulay  might  have  remembered  that  Cran- 
mer  was  working  all  his  life  with  the  prospect  of  being 
burnt  alive  as  his  reward ;  and,  as  we  all  know,  he  actu- 
ally was  burnt  alive. 

When  the  Protestant  teaching  began  first  to  spread  in 
the  Netherlands,  before  one  single  Catholic  had  been  ill- 
treated  there,  before  a  symptom  of  a  mutinous  disposition 
had  shown  itself  among  the  people,  an  edict  was  issued  by 
the  authorities  for.  the  suppression  of  the  new  opinions. 

The  terms  of  this  edict  I  will  briefly  describe  to  you. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  United  Provinces  were  informed 
that  they  were  to  hold  and  believe  the  doctrines  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Catholic  Church.  "  Men  and  women,"  says 
the  edict,  "  who  disobey  this  command  shall  be  punished 
as  disturbers  of  public  order.  Women  who  have  fallen 
into  heresy  shall  be  buried  alive.  Men,  if  they  recant, 
shall  lose  their  heads.  If  they  continue  obstinate,  they 
shall  be  burnt  at  the  stake. 

"  If  man  or  woman  be  suspected  of  heresy,  no  one  shall 
shelter  or  protect  him  or  her;  and  no  stranger  shall  be 
admitted  to  lodge  in  any  inn  or  dwelling-house  unless  he 
bring  with  him  a  testimonial  of  orthodoxy  from  the  priest 
of  his  parish. 

"  The  Inquisition  shall  inquire  into  the  private  opinions 
of  every  person,  of  whatever  degree  ;  and  all  officers  of  all 
kinds  shall  assist  the  Inquisition  at  their  peril.  Those  who 
know  where  heretics  are  concealed  shall  denounce  them, 
or  they  shall  suffer  as  heretics  themselves.  Heretics  "  (ob- 
serve the  malignity  of  this  paragraph),  —  "heretics  who 
will  give  up  other  heretics  to  justice,  shall  themselves  be 
pardoned  if  they  will  promise  to  conform  for  the  future." 


46  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

Under  this  edict,  in  the  Netherlands  alone,  more  than 
fifty  thousand  human  beings,  first  and  last,  were  deliber- 
ately murdered.  And,  gentlemen,  I  must  say  that  pro- 
ceedings of  this  kind  explain  and  go  far  to  excuse  the  sub- 
sequent intolerance  of  Protestants. 

Intolerance,  Mr.  Gibbon  tells  us,  is  a  greater  crime  in  a 
Protestant  than  a  Catholic.  Criminal  intolerance,  as  I 
understand  it,  is  the  intolerance  of  such  an  edict  as  that 
which  I  have  read  to  you,  —  {he  unprovoked  intolerance  of 
difference  of  opinion.  1  conceive  that  the  most  enlight- 
ened philosopher  might  have  grown  hard  and  narrow- 
minded  if  he  had  suffered  under  the  administration  of  the 
Duke  of  Alva. 

Dismissing  these  considerations,  I  will  now  go  on  with 
my  subject. 

Never  in  all  their  history,  in  ancient  times  or  modern, 
never  that  we  know  of,  have  mankind  thrown  out  of 
themselves  any  thing  so  grand,  so  useful,  so  beautiful,  as 
the  Catholic  Church  once  was.  In  these  times  of  ours, 
wetl-regulated  selfishness  is  the  recognized  rule  of  action  ; 
every  one  of  us  is  expected  to  look  out  first  for  himself, 
and  take  care  of  his  own  interests.  At  the  time  I  speak 
of,  the  Church  ruled  the  State  with  the  authority  of  a  con- 
science ;  and  self-interest,  as  a  motive  of  action,  was  only 
named  to  be  abhorred.  The  bishops  and  clergy  were  re- 
garded freely  and  simply  as  the  immediate  ministers  of  the 
Almighty ;  and  they  seem  to  me  to  have  really  deserved 
that  high  estimate  of  their  character.  It  was  not  for  the 
doctrines  which  they  taught,  only  or  chiefly,  that  they  were 
held  in  honor.  Brave  men  do  not  fall  down  before  their 
fellow-mortals  for  the  words  which  they  speak,  or  for  the 
rites  which  they  perform.  Wisdom,  justice,  self-denial, 
nobleness,  purity,  high-mindedness,  —  these  are  the  quali- 
ties before  which  the  free-born  races  of  Europe  have  been 
contented  to  bow  ;  and  in  no  order  of  men  were  such  qual- 
ities to  be  found  as  they  were  found  six  hundred  years 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luthir.  4T 

ago  in  the  clergy  of  the  Catholic  Church.  They  called 
themselves  the  successors  of  the  Apostles.  They  claimed 
in  their  Master's  name  universal  spiritual  authority,  but 
they  made  good  their  pretensions  by  the  holiness  of  their 
own  lives.  They  were  allowed  to  rule  because  they  de- 
served to  rule,  and,  in  the  fullness  of  reverence,  kings  and 
nobles  bent  before  a  power  which  was  nearer  to  God  than 
their  own.  Over  prince  and  subject,  chieftain  and  serf,  a 
body  of  unarmed,  defenseless  men  reigned  supreme  by  the 
magic  of  sanctity.  They  tamed  the  fiery  northern  w^ar- 
riors  who  had  broken  in  pieces  the  Roman  Empire.  They 
taught  them  —  they  brought  them  really  and  truly  to 
believe  —  that  they  had  immortal  souls,  and  that  they 
would  one  day  stand  at  the  awful  judgment-bar  and  give 
account  for  their  lives  there.  With  the  brave,  the  honest, 
and  the  good ;  with  those  who  had  not  oppressed  the 
poor  nor  removed  their  neighbor's  landmark ;  with  those 
who  had  been  just  in  all  their  dealings  ;  with  those  who 
had  fought  against  evil,  and  had  tried  valiantly  to  do  their 
Master's  will,  —  at  that  great  day,  it  would  be  well.  For 
cowards,  for  profligates,  for  those  who  lived  for  luxury  and 
pleasure  and  self-indulgence,  there  was  the  blackness  of 
eternal  death. 

An  awful  conviction  of  this  tremendous  kind  the  clergy 
had  effectually  instilled  into  the  mind  of  Europe.  It  was 
not  a  PERHAPS  ;  it  was  a  certainty.  It  was  not  a  form  of 
words  repeated  once  a  week  at  church  ;  it  was  an  assur- 
ance entertained  on  all  days  and  in  all  places,  without  any 
particle  of  doubt.  And  the  effect  of  such  a  belief  on  life 
and  conscience  was  simply  immeasurable. 

I  do  not  pretend  that  the  clergy  were  perfect.  They 
were  very  far  from  perfect  at  the  best  of  times,  and  the 
European  nations  were,  never  completely  submissive  to 
them.  It  would  not  have  been  well  if  they  had  been. 
The  business  of  human  creatures  in  this  planet  is  not 
summed  up  in  the  most  excellent  of  priestly  catechisms. 


48  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

The  world  and  its  concerns  continued  to  interest  men, 
though  priests  insisted  on  their  nothingness.  They  could 
not  prevent  kings  from  quarreling  with  each  other.  They 
could  not  hinder  disputed  successions  and  civil  feuds  and 
wars  and  political  conspiracies.  What  they  did  do  was 
to  shelter  the  weak  from  the  strong.  In  the  eyes  of  the 
clergy,  the  serf  and  his  lord  stood  on  the  common  level 
of  sinful  humanity.  Into  their  ranks  high  birth  was  no 
passport.  They  were  themselves  for  the  most  part  chil- 
dren of  the  people  ^  and  the  son  of  the  artisan  or  peasant 
rose  to  the  mitre  and  the  triple  crown,  just  as  nowadays 
the  rail-splitter  and  the  tailor  become  Presidents  of  the 
Republic  of  the  West. 

The  Church  was  essentially  democratic,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  had  the  monopoly  of  learning ;  and  all  the 
secular  power  fell  to  it  which  learning,  combined  with 
sanctity  and  assisted  by  superstition,  can  bestow. 

The  privileges  of  the  clergy  were  extraordinary.  They 
were  not  amenable  to  the  common  laws  of  the  land. 
While  they  governed  tlie  laity,  the  laity  had  no  power  over 
them.  From  the  throne  downwards,  every  secular  office 
was  dependent  on  the  Church.  No  king  was  a  lawful  sov- 
ereign till  the  Church  placed  the  crown  upon  his  head  ; 
and  what  the  Church  bestowed,  the  Church  claimed  the 
right  to  take  away.  The  disposition  of  property  was  in 
their  hands.  No  will  could  be  proved  except  before  the 
bishop  or  his  officer ;  and  no  will  was  held  valid  if  the 
testator  died  out  of  communion.  There  were  magistrates 
and  courts  of  law  for  the  offenses  of  the  laity.  If  a  priest 
committed  a  crime,  he  was  a  sacred  person.  The  civil 
power  could  not  touch  him  ;  he  was  reserved  for  his  ordi-r 
nary.  Bishops'  commissaries  sat  in  town  and  city,  taking 
cognizance  of  the  moral  conduct  of  every  man  and  woman. 
Offenses  against  life  and  property  were  tried  here  in  Eng- 
land, as  now,  by  the  common  law ;  but  the  Church  courts 
dealt  with  sins  —  sins  of  word  or  act.  If  a  man  was  a 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  49 

profligate  or  a  drunkard  ;  if  he  lied  or  swore  ;  if  he  did  not 
come  to  communion,  or  held  unlawful  opinions  ;  if  he  was 
idle  or  unthrifty  ;  if  he  was  unkind  to  his  wife  or  his  ser- 
vants ;  if  a  child  was  disobedient  to  his  father,  or  a  father 
cruel  to  his  child ;  if  a  tradesman  sold  adulterated  wares, 
or  used  false  measures  or  dishonest  weights,  —  the  eye  of 
the  parish  priest  was  everywhere,  and  the  Church  court 
stood  always  open  to  examine  and  to  punish. 

Imagine  what  a  tremendous  power  this  must  have  been ! 
Yet  it  existed  generally  in  Catholic  Europe  down  to  the 
eve  of  the  Reformation.  It  could  never  have  established 
itself  at  all  unless  at  one  time  it  had  worked  beneficially, 
as  the  abuse  of  it  was  one  of  the  most  fatal  causes  of  the 
Church's  fall. 

I  know  nothing  in  English  history  much  more  striking 
than  the  answer  given  by  Archbishop  Warham  to  the  com- 
plaints of  the  English  House  of  Commons  after  the  fall  of 
Cardinal  Wolsey.  The  House  of  Commons  complained 
that  the  clergy  made  laws  in  Convocation,  which  the  laity 
were  excommunicated  if  they  disobeyed.  Yet  the  laws 
made  by  the  clergy,  the  Commons  said,  were  often  at 
variance  with  the  laws  of  the  realm. 

What  did  Warham  reply  ?  He  said  he  was  sorry  for  the 
alleged  discrepancy ;  but,  inasmuch  as  the  laws  made  by 
the  clergy  were  always  in  conformity  with  the  will  of  God, 
the  laws  of  the  realm  had  only  to  be  altered,  and  then  the 
difficulty  would  vanish. 

What  must  have  been  the  position  of  the  clergy  in  the 
fullness  of  their  power,  when  they  could  speak  thus  on  the 
eve  of  their  prostration  ?  You  have  only  to  look  from  a 
distance  at  any  old-fashioned  cathedral  city,  and  you  will 
see  in  a  moment  the  mediaeval  relations  between  Church 
and  State.  The  cathedral  is  the  city.  The  first  object  you 
catch  sight -of  as  you  approach  is  the  spire  tapering  into  the 
sky,  or  the  huge  towers  holding  possession  of  the  centre  of 
the  landscape,  majestically  beautiful,  imposing  by  mere 
4 


50  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

size  amidst  the  large  forms  of  Nature  herself.  As  you  go 
nearer,  the  vastness  of  the  building  impresses  you  more 
and  more.  The  puny  dwelling-places  of  the  citizens  creep 
at  its  feet,  the  pinnacles  are  glittering  in  the  tints  of  the 
sunset,  when  down  below  among  the  streets  and  lanes  the 
twilight  is  darkening.  And  even  now,  when  the  towns  are 
thrice  their  ancient  size,  and  the  houses  have  stretched 
upwards  from  two  stories  to  five  ;  when  the  great  chimneys 
are  vomiting  their  smoke  among  the  clouds,  and  the  temples 
of  modern  industry  —  the  workshops  and  the  factories  — 
spread  their  long  fronts  before  the  eye,  —  the  cathedral  is 
still  the  governing  form  in  the  picture,  the  one  object  which 
possesses  the  imagination  and  refuses  to  be  eclipsed. 

As  that  cathedral  was  to  the  old  town,  so  was  the  Church 
of  the  Middle  Ages  to  the  secular  institutions  of  the  world. 
Its  very  neighborhood  was  sacred  ;  and  its  shadow,  like  the 
shadow  of  the  Apostles,  was  a  sanctuary.  "When  I  look  at 
the  new  Houses  of  Parliament  in  London,  I  see  in  them  a 
type  of  the  change  which  has  passed  over  us.  The  House 
of  Commons  of  the  Plantagenets  sat  in  the  Chapter  House 
of  Westminster  Abbey.  The  Parliament  of  the  Reform 
Bill,  five  and  thirty  years  ago,  debated  in  St.  Stephen's 
Chapel,  the  Abbey's  small  dependency.  Now,  by  the  side 
of  the  enormous  pile  which  has  risen  out  of  that  chapel's 
ashes,  the  proud  minster  itself  is  dwarfed  into  insignifi- 
cance. 

Let  us  turn  to  another  vast  feature  of  the  Middle  Ages ; 
I  mean  the  monasteries. 

Some  person  of  especial  and  exceptional  holiness  has 
lived  or  died  at  a  particular  spot.  He  has  been  dis- 
tinguished by  his  wisdom,  by  his  piety,  by  his  active  benev- 
olence ;  and,  in  an  age  when  conjurors  and  witches  were 
supposed  to  be  helped  by  the  Devil  to  do  evil,  he,  on  his 
part,  has  been  thought  to  have  possessed  in  larger  measure 
than  common  men  the  favor  and  the  grace,  of  Heaven. 
Blessed  influences  hang  about  the  spot  which  he  has  hal- 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luthei'.  51 

lowed  by  his  presence.  His  relics  —  his  household  posses- 
sions, his  books,  his  clothes,  his  bones  —  retain  the  shadowy 
sanctity  which  they  received  in  having  once  belonged  to 
him.  We  all  set  a  value,  not  wholly  unreal,  on  any  thing 
which  has  been  the  property  of  a  remarkable  man.  At 
worst,  it  is  but  an  exaggeration  of  natural  reverence. 

Well,  as  nowadays  we  build  monuments  to  great  men, 
so  in  the  Middle  Ages  they  built  shrines  or  chapels  on  the 
spots  which  saints  had  made  holy ;  and  communities  of  pious 
people  gathered  together  there  —  beginning  with  the  per- 
sonal friends  the  saint  had  left  behind  him  —  to  try  to  live 
as  he  had  lived,  to  do  good  as  he  had  done  good,  and  to 
die  as  he  had  died.  Thus  arose  religious  fraternities, — 
companies  of  men  who  desired  to  devote  themselves  to 
goodness,  to  give  up  pleasure  and  amusement  and  self- 
indulgence,  and  to  spend  their  lives  in  prayer  and  works 
of  charity. 

These  houses  became  centres  of  pious  beneficence.  The 
monks,  as  the  brotherhoods  were  called,  were  organized  in 
different  orders,  with  some  variety  of  rule,  but  the  broad 
principle  was  the  same  in  all.  They  were  to  live  for  others, 
not  for  themselves.  They  took  vows  of  poverty,  that  they 
might  not  be  entangled  in  the  pursuit  of  money.  They 
took  vows  of  chastity,  that  the  care  of  a  family  might  not 
distract  them  from  the  work  which  they  had  undertaken. 
Their  efforts  of  charity  were  not  limited  to  this  world. 
Their  days  were  spent  in  hard  bodily  labor,  in  study;  or 
in  visiting  the  sick.  At  night  they  were  on  the  stone 
floors  of  their  chapels,  holding  up  their  withered  hands  to 
Heaven,  interceding  for  the  poor  souls  who  were  suffering 
in  purgatory. 

The  world,  as  it  nhvays  will,  paid  honor  to  exceptional 
excellence.  The  system  spread  to  the  furthest  limits  of 
Christendom.  The  religious  houses  became  places  of  ref- 
uge, where  men  of  noble  birth,  kings  and  queens  and 
emperors,  warriors  and  statesmen,  retired  to  lay  down  Iheir 


52  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

splendid  cares,  and  end  their  days  in  peace.  Those  with 
whom  the  world  had  dealt  hardly,  or  those  whom  it  had 
.surfeited  with  its  unsatisfying  pleasures,  those  who  were 
disappointed  with  earth,  and  those  who  were  filled  with 
passionate  aspirations  after  heaven,  alike  found  a  haven 
of  rest  in  the  quiet  cloister.  And,  gradually,  lands  came 
to  them  and  wealth  and  social  dignity,  —  all  gratefully 
extended  to  men  who  deserved  so  well  of  their  fellows  ; 
while  no  landlords  were  more  popular  than  they,  for  the 
sanctity  of  the  monks  sheltered  their  dependents  as  well  as 
themselves. 

Travel  now  through  Ireland,  and  you  will  see  in  the 
wildest  parts  of  it  innumerable  remains  of  religious  houses, 
which  had  grown  up  among  a  people  who  acknowledged  no 
rule  among  themselves  except  the  sword,  and  where  every 
chief  made  war  upon  his  neighbor  as  the  humor  seized 
him.  The  monks  among  the  O's  and  the  Mac's  were  as 
defenseless  as  sheep  among  the  wolves ;  but  the  wolves 
spared  them  for  their  character.  In  such  a  country  as 
Ireland  then  was,  the  monasteries  could  not  have  survived 
for  a  generation  but  for  the  enchanted  atmosphere  which 
surrounded  them. 

Of  authority,  the  religious  orders  were  practically  inde- 
pendent. They  were  amenable  only  to  the  Pope  and  to 
their  own  superiors.  Here  in  England,  the  king  could  not 
send  a  commissioner  to  inspect  a  monastery,  nor  even  send 
a  policeman  to  arrest  a  criminal  who  had  taken  shelter 
within  its  walls.  Archbishops  and  bishops,  powerful  as 
they  were,  found  their  authority  cease  when  they  entered 
the  gates  of  a  Benedictine  or  Dominican  abbey. 

So  utterly  have  times  changed  that  with  your  utmost 
exertions  you  will  hardly  be  able  to  picture  to  yourselves 
the  Catholic  Church  in  the  days  of  its  greatness.  Our 
school-books  tell  us  how  the  Emperor  of  Germany  held 
the  stirrup  for  Pope  Gregory  the  Seventh  to  mount  his 
mule  ;  how  our  own  English  Henry  Plantagenet  walked 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  53 

barefoot  through  the  streets  of  Canterbury,  and  knelt  in 
the  Chapter  House  for  the  monks  to  flog  him.  The  first 
of  these  incidents,  I  was  brought  up  to  believe,  proved  the 
Pope  to  be  the  Man  of  Sin.  Anyhow,  they  are  both  facts, 
and  not  romances  ;  and  you  may  form  some  notion  from 
them  how  high  in  the  world's  eyes  the  Church  must  have 
stood. 

And  be  sure  it  did  not  achieve  that  proud  position  with- 
out deserving  it.  The  Teutonic  and  Latin  princes  were 
not  credulous  fools ;  and,  when  they  submitted,  it  was  to 
something  stronger  than  themselves,  —  stronger  in  limb  and 
muscle,  or  stronger  in  intellect  and  character. 

So  the  Church  was  in  its  vigor :  so  the  Church  was  not 
at  the  opening  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Power,  wealth, 
security,  —  men  are  more  than  mortal  if  they  can  resist  the 
temptations  to  which  too  much  of  these  expose  them.  Nor 
were  they  the  only  enemies  which  undermined  the  energies 
of  the  Catholic  clergy.  Churches  exist  in  this  Avorld  to  re- 
mind us  of  the  eternal  laws  which  we  are  bound  to  obey. 
So^far  as  they  do  this,  they  fulfill  their  end,  and  are  honored 
in  fulfilling  it.  It  would  have  been  better  for  all  of  us,  — 
it  would  be  better  for  us  now,  —  could  churches  keep  this 
their  peculiar  function  steadily  and  singly  before  them. 
Unfortunately,  they  have  preferred  in  later  times  the  spec- 
ulative side  of  things  to  the  practical.  They  take  up  into 
their  teaching  opinions  and  theories  which  are  merely 
ephemeral ;  which  would  naturally  die  out  with  the  prog- 
ress of  knowledge,  but,  having  received  a  spurious  sanc- 
tity, prolong  their  days  unseasonably,  and  become  first 
unmeaning,  and  then  occasions  of  superstition. 

It  matters  little  whether  I  say  a  paternoster  in  English 
or  Latin,  so  that  what  is  present  to  my  mind  is  the  thought 
which  the  words  express,  and  not  the  words  themselves. 
In  these  and  all  languages  it  is  the  most  beautiful  of  prayers. 
But  you  know  that  people  came  to  look  on  a  Latin  pater- 
noster as  the  most  powerful  of  spells,  —  potent  in  heaven, 


54  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

if  said  straightforward ;  if  repeated  backward,  a  diarm 
which  no  spirit  in  hell  could  resist. 

So  it  is,  in  my  opinion,  with  all  forms,  —  forms  of  words, 
or  forms  of  ceremony  and  ritualism.  While  the  meaning 
is  alive  in  them,  they  are  not  only  harmless,  but  pregnant 
and  life-giving.  When  we  come  to  think  that  they  possess 
in  themselves  material  and  magical  virtues,  then  the  pur- 
pose which  they  answer  is  to  hide  God  from  us,  and  make 
us  practically  into  Atheists. 

This  is  what  I  believe  to  have  gradually  fallen  upon  the 
Catholic  Church  in  the  generations  which  preceded  Luther. 
The  body  remained ;  the  mind  was  gone  away :  the  origi- 
nal thought  which  its  symbolism  represented  was  no  longer 
credible  to  intelligent  persons. 

The  acute  were  conscious  unbelievers.  In  Italy,  when 
men  went  to  mass  they  spoke  of  it  as  going  to  a  comedy. 
You  may  have  heard  the  story  of  Luther  in  his  younger 
days  saying  mass  at  an  altar  in  Rome,  and  hearing  his  fel- 
low-priests muttering  at  the  consecration  of  the  Eucharist, 
"  Bread  thou  art,  and  bread  thou  wilt  remain." 

Part  of  the  clergy  were  profane  scoundrels  like  these  ; 
the  rest  repeated  the  words  of  the  sendee,  conceiving  that 
they  were  working  a  charm.  Religion  was  passing  through 
the  transformation  which  all  religions  have  a  tendency  to 
undergo.  They  cease  to  be  aids  and  incentives  to  holy 
life ;  they  become  contrivances  rather  to  enable  men  to  sin, 
and  escape  the  penalties  of  sin.  Obedience  to  the  law  is 
dispensed  with  if  men  will  diligently  profess  certain  opin- 
ions, or  punctually  perform  certain  external  duties.  How- 
ever scandalous  the  moral  life,  the  participation  of  a  par- 
ticular rite,  or  the  profession  of  a  particular  belief,  at  the 
moment  of  death,  is  held  to  clear  the  score. 

The  powers  which  had  been  given  to  the  clergy  required 
for  their  exercise  the  highest  wisdom  and  the  highest  prob- 
ity. They  had  fallen  at  last  into  the  hands  of  men  who 
possessed  considerably  less  of  these  qualities  than  the  laity 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  55 

whom  they  undertook  to  govern.  They  had  degraded  their 
conceptions  of  God ;  and,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  they 
had  degraded  their  conceptions  of  man  and  man's  duty. 
The  aspirations  after  sanctity  had  disappeared,  and  instead 
of  them  there  remained  the  practical  reality  of  the  five 
senses.  The  high  prelates,  the  cardinals,  the  great  abbots, 
were  occupied  chiefly  in  maintaining  their  splendor  and 
luxury.  The  friars  and  the  secular  clergy,  following  their 
superiors  with  shorter  steps,  indulged  themselves  in  grosser 
pleasures ;  while  their  spiritual  powers,  their  supposed  au- 
thority in  this  world  and  the  next,  were  .turned  to  account 
to  obtain  from  the  laity  the  means  for  their  self-indulgence. 

The  Church  forbade  the  eating  of  meat  on  fast  days,  but 
the  Church  was  ready  with  dispensations  for  those  who 
could  afford  to  pay  for  them.  The  Church  forbade  mar- 
riage to  the  fourth  degree  of  consanguinity;  but  loving 
cousins,  if  they  were  rich  and  open-handed,  could  obtain 
the  Church's  consent  to  their  union.  There  were  toll-gates 
for  the  priests  at  every  halting-place  on  the  road  of  life,  — 
fees  at  weddings,  fees  at  funerals,  fees  whenever  an  excuse 
could  be  found  to  fasten  them.  Even  when  a  man  was 
dead  he  was  not  safe  from  plunder,  for  a  mortuary  or  death 
present  was  exacted  of  his  family. 

And  then  those  Bishops'  Courts,  of  which  I  spoke  just 
now,  —  they  were  founded  for  the  discipline  of  morality ; 
they  were  made  the  instruments  of  the  most  detestable  ex- 
tortion. If  an  impatient  layman  spoke  a  disrespectful  word 
of  the  clergy,  he  was  cited  before  the  bishop's  commissary 
and  fined.  If  he  refused  to  pay,  he  was  excommunicated, 
and  excommunication  was  a  poisonous  disease.  When  a 
poor  wretch  was  under  the  ban  of  the  Church,  no  trades- 
man might  sell  him  clothes  or  food,  no  friend  might  re- 
lieve him,  no  human  voice  might  address  him,  under  pain 
of  the  same  sentence  ;  and,  if  he  died  unreconciled,  he  died 
like  a  dog,  without  the  sacraments,  and  was  refused  Chris- 
tian burial. 


56  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Lutlier. 

The  records  of  some  of  these  courts  survive ;  a  glance 
at  their  pages  will  show  the  principles  on  which  they  were 
worked.  When  a  layman  offended,  the  single  object  was 
to  make  him  pay  for  it.  The  magistrates  could  not  pro- 
tect him.  If  he  resisted,  and  his  friends  supported  him,  so 
much  the  better,  for  they  were  now  all  in  the  scrape  to- 
gether. The  next  step  would  be  to  indict  them  in  a  body 
for  heresy ;  and  then,  of  course,  there  was  nothing  for  it 
but  to  give  way,  and  compound  for  absolution  by  money. 

It  was  money,  ever  money.  Even  in  case  of  real  de- 
.  linquency,  it  was  still  money.  Money,  not  charity,  covered 
the  multitude  of  sins. 

I  have  told  you  that  the  clergy  were  exempt  from  secular 
jurisdiction.  They  claimed  to  be  amenable  only  to  spirit- 
ual judges,  and  they  extended  the  broad  fringe  of  their 
order  till  the  word  "  clerk  "  was  construed  to  mean  any  one 
who  could  write  his  name  or  read  a  sentence  from  a  book. 
A  robber  or  a  murderer  at  the  assizes  had  but  to  show  that 
he  possessed  either  of  these  qualifications,  and  he  was  al- 
lowed what  was  called  benefit  of  clergy.  His  case  was 
transferred  to  the  Bishops'  Court,  to  an  easy  judge,  who 
allowed  him  at  once  to  compound. 

Such  were  the  clergy  in  matters  of  this  world.  As  relig- 
ious instructors,  they  appear  in  colors  if  possible  less  at- 
tractive. 

Practical  religion  throughout  Europe  at  the  beginning 
of  the  sixteenth  century  was  a  very  simple  affair.  I  am 
not  going  to  speak  of  the  mysterious  doctrines  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church.  The  creed  which  it  professed  in  its  schools 
and  theological  treatises  was  the  same  which  it  professes 
now,  and  which  it  had  professed  at  the  time  when  it  was 
most  powerful  for  good.  I  do  not  myself  consider  that  the 
formulas  in  which  men  express  their  belief  are  of  much 
consequence.  The  question  is  rather  of  the  thing  ex- 
pressed ;  and  so  long  as  we  find  a  living  consciousness  that 
above  the  world  and  above  human  life  there  is  a  righteous 


of  Erasmus,  and  Luthei\  57 

God,  who  will  judge  men  according  to  their  works,  whether 
they  say  their  prayers  in  Latin  or  English,  whether  they 
call  themselves  Protestants  or  call  themselves  Catholics, 
appears  to  me  of  quite  secondary  importance.  But,  at  the 
time  I  speak  of,  that  consciousness  no  longer  existed.  The 
formulas  and  ceremonies  were  all  in  all ;  and  of  God  it  is 
hard  to  say  what  conceptions  men  had  formed  when  they 
believed  that  a  dead  man's  relations  could  buy  him  out 
of  purgatory  —  buy  him  out  of  purgatory,  for  this  was  the 
literal  truth  - —  by  hiring  priests  to  sing  masses  for  his  soul. 

Religion,  in  the  minds  of  ordinary  people,  meant  that  the 
keys  of  the  other  world  were  held  by  the  clergy.  If  a  man 
confessed  regularly  to  his  priest,  received  the  sacrament, 
and  was  absolved,  then  all  was  well  with  him.  His  duties 
consisted  in  going  to  confession  and  to  mass.  If  he  com- 
mitted sins,  he  was  prescribed  penances,  which  could  be 
commuted  for  money.  If  he  was  sick,  or  ill  at  ease  in  his 
mind,  he  was  recommended  a  pilgrimage,  ^-  a  pilgrimage  to 
a  shrine  or  a  holy  well,  or  to  some  wonder-working  image, 
where,  for  due  consideration,  his  case  would  be  attended  to. 
It  was  no  use  to  go  to  a  saint  empty-handed.  The  rule  of 
the  Church  was,  nothing  for  nothing.  At  a  chapel  in  Sax- 
ony there  was  an  image  of  a  Virgin  and  Child.  If  the 
worshiper  came  to  it  with  a  good,  handsome  offering,  the 
child  bowed  and  was  gracious ;  if  the  present  was  unsatis- 
factory, it  turned  away  its  head,  and  withheld  its  favors  till 
the  purse-strings  were  untied  again. 

There  was  a  great  rood  or  crucifix  of  the  same  kind  at 
Boxley,  in  Kent,  where  the  pilgrims  went  in  thousands. 
This  figure  used  to  bow,  too,  when  it  was  pleased ;  and  a 
good  sum  of  money  was  sure  to  secure  its  good-will. 

When  the  Reformation  came,  and  the  police  looked  into 
the  matter,  the  images  were  found  to  be  worked  with  wires 
and' pulleys.  The  German  lady  was  kept  as  a  curiosity  in 
the  cabinet  of  the  Elector  of  Saxony.  Our  Boxley  rood 
was  brought  up  and  exhibited  in  Cheapside,  and  was  after- 
wards torn  in  pieces  by  the  people. 


68  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

Nor  here  again  was  death  the  limit  of  extortion :  death 
was  rather  the  gate  of  the  sphere  which  the  clergy  made 
peculiarly  their  own.  When  a  man  died,  his  friends  were 
naturally  anxious  for  the  fate  of  his  soul.  If  he  died  in 
communion,  he  was  not  in  the  worst  place  of  all.  He  had 
not  been  a  saint,  and  therefore  he  was  not  in  the  best. 
Therefore  he  was  in  purgatory,  —  Purgatory  Pickpurse,  as 
our  English  Latimer  called  it,  —  and  a  priest,  if  properly 
paid,  could  get  him  out. 

To  be  a  mass  priest,  as  it  was  called,  was  a  regular  pro- 
fession, in  which,  with  little  trouble,  a  man  could  earn  a 
comfortable  living.  He  had  only  to  be  ordained  and  to 
learn  by  heart  a  certain  form  of  words,  and  that  was  all  the 
equipment  necessary  for  him.  The  masses  were  paid  for 
at  so  much  a  dozen,  and,  for  every  mass  that  was  said,  so 
many  years  were  struck  off  from  the  penal  period.  Two 
priests  were  sometimes  to  be  seen  muttering  away  at  the 
opposite  ends  of  the  same  altar,  like  a  couple  of  musical 
boxes  playing  different  parts  of  the  same  tune  at  the  same 
time.  It  made  no  difference.  The  upper  powers  had  what 
they  wanted.  If  they  got  the  masses,  and  the  priests  got 
the  money,  all  parties  concerned  were  satisfied. 

I  am  speaking  of  the  form  which  these  things  assumed 
in  an  age  of  degradation  and  ignorance.  The  truest  and 
wisest  words  ever  spoken  by  man  might  be  abused  in  the 
same  way.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  or  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  if  recited  mechanically,  and  relied  on  to  work  a 
mechanical  effort,  would  be  no  less  perniciously  idolatrous. 

You  can  see  something  of  the  same  kind  in  a  milder 
form  in  Spain  at  the  present  day.  The  Spaniards,  all  of 
them,  high  and  low,  are  expected  to  buy  annually  a  Pope's 
Bula  or  Bull,  —  a  small  pardon,  or  indulgence,  or  plenary 
remission  of  sins.  The  exact  meaning  of  these  things  is 
a  little  obscure;  the  high  authorities  themselves  do  not 
universally  agree  about  them,  except  so  far  as  to  say  that 
they  are  of  prodigious  value  of  some  sort.  The  orthodox 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  59 

explanation,  I  believe,  is  something  of  this  kind :  With  every 
sin  there  is  the  moral  guilt  and  the  temporal  penalty. 
The  pardon  cannot  touch  the  guilt ;  but  when  the  guilt  is 
remitted,  there  is  still  the  penalty.  I  may  ruin  my  health 
by  a  dissolute  life ;  I  may  repent  of  my  dissoluteness  and 
be  forgiven  ;  but  the  bad  health  will  remain.  For  bad 
health  substitute  penance  in  this  world  and  purgatory  in 
the  next ;  and  in  this  sphere  the  indulgence  takes  effect. 

Such  as  they  are,  at  any  rate,  every  body  in  Spain  has 
these  bulls ;  you  buy  them  in  the  shops  for  a  shilling 
apiece. 

This  is  one  form  of  the  thing.  Again,  at  the  door  of  a 
Spanish  church  you  will  see  hanging  on  the  wall  an  intima- 
tion that  whoever  will  pray  so  many  hours  before  a  partic- 
ular image  shall  receive  full  forgiveness  of  his  sins.  Hav- 
ing got  that,  one  might  suppose  he  would  be  satisfied ;  but 
no :  if  he  prays  so  many  more  hours,  he  can  get  off  a 
hundred  years  of  purgatory,  or  a  thousand,  or  ten  thousand. 
In  one  place  I  remember  observing  that  for  a  very  little 
trouble  a  man  could  escape  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
years  of  purgatory. 

What  a  prospect  for  the  ill-starred  Protestant,  who  will 
be  lucky  if  he  is  admitted  into  purgatory  at  all ! 

Again,  if  you  enter  a  sacristy,  you  will  see  a  small  board 
like  the  notices  addressed  to  parishioners  in  our  vestries. 
On  particular  days  it  is  taken  out  and  hung  up  in  the 
church,  and  little  would  a  stranger,  ignorant  of  the  lan- 
guage, guess  the  tremendous  meaning  of  that  commonplace 
appearance.  On  these  boards  is  written,  "  Hoy  se  sacan 
animas"  —  "  This  day,  souls  are  taken  out  of  purgatory." 
It  is  an  intimation  to  every  one  with  a  friend  in  distress 
that  now  is  his  time.  You  put  a  shilling  in  a  plate,  you 
give  your  friend's  name,  and  the  thing  is  done.  One  won- 
ders why,  if  purgatory  can  be  sacked  so  easily,  any  poor 
wretch  is  left  to  suffer  there. 

Such    practices    nowadays  are   comparatively  innocent, 


60  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

the  money  asked  and  given  is  trifling,  and  probably  no  one 
concerned  in  the  business  believes  much  about  it.  They 
serve  to  show,  however,  on  a  small  scale,  what  once  went 
on  on  an  immense  scale  ;  and  even  such  as  they  are,  pious 
Catholics  do  not  much  approve  of  them.  They  do  not 
venture  to  say  much  on  the  subject  directly,  but  they  al- 
low themselves  a  certain  good-humored  ridicule.  A  Span- 
ish novelist  of  some  reputation  tells  a  story  of  a  man  com- 
ing to  a  priest  on  one  of  these  occasions,  putting  a  shilling 
in  the  plate,  and  giving  in  the  name  of  his  friend. 

"  Is  my  friend's  soul  out  ? "  he  asked.  The  priest  said  it 
was.  "  Quite  sure  ?  "  the  man  asked.  "  Quite  sure,"  the 
priest  answered.  "  Very  well,"  said  the  man,  "  if  he  is  out 
of  purgatory  they  will  not  put  him  in  again :  it  is  a  bad 
shilling." 

Sadder  than  all  else,  even  as  the  most  beautiful  things  are 
worst  in  their  degradation,  was  the  condition  of  the  mon- 
asteries. I  am  here  on  delicate  ground.  The  accounts 
of  those  institutions,  as  they  existed  in  England  and  Ger- 
many at  the  time  of  their  suppression,  is  so  shocking  that 
even  impartial  writers  have  hesitated  to  believe  the  reports 
which  have  come  down  to  us.  The  laity,  we  are  told,  de- 
termined to  appropriate  the  abbey  lands,  and  maligned  the 
monks  to  justify  the  spoliation.  Were  the  charge  true, 
the  religious  orders  would  still  be  without  excuse,  for  the 
whole  education  of  the  country  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
clergy  ;  and  they  had  allowed  a  whole  generation  to  grow 
up,  which,  on  this  hypothesis,  was  utterly  depraved. 

But  no  such  theory  can  explain  away  the  accumulated 
testimony  which  comes  to  us  —  exactly  alike  —  from  so 
many  sides  and  witnesses.  We  are  not  dependent  upon 
evidence  which  Catholics  can  decline  to  receive.  In  the 
reign  of  our  Henry  the  Seventh,  the  notorious  corruption 
of  some  of  the  great  abbeys  in  England  brought  them  un- 
der the  notice  of  the  Catholic  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
Cardinal  Moi'ton.  The  archbishop,  unable  to  meddle  with 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  61 

them  by  his  own  authority,  obtained  the  necessary  powers 
from  the  Pope.  He  instituted  a  partial  visitation  in  the 
neighborhood  of  London  ;  and  the  most  malignant  Protest- 
ant never  drew  such  a  picture  of  profligate  brutality  as 
Cardinal  Morton  left  behind  him  in  his  Register,  in  a  de- 
scription of  the  great  Abbey  of  St.  Albans.  I  cannot,  in 
a  public  lecture,  give  you  the  faintest  idea  of  what  it  con- 
tains. The  monks  were  bound  to  celibacy,  —  that  is  to  say, 
they  were  not  allowed  to  marry.  They  were  full-fed,  idle, 
and  sensual ;  of  sin  they  thought  only  as  something  ex- 
tremely pleasant,  of  which  they  could  cleanse  one  another 
with  a  few  mumbled  words  as  easily  as  they  could  wash 
their  faces  in  a  basin.  And  there  I  must  leave  the  matter. 
Any  body  who  is  curious  for  particulars  may  see  the  origi- 
nal account  in  Morton's  Register,  in  the  archbishop's 
library  at  Lambeth. 

A  quarter  of  a  century  after  this  there  appeared  in  Ger- 
many a  book,  now  called  by  Catholics  an  infamous  libel, 
the  "  Epistolae  Obscurorum  Virorum."  "  The  obscure  men," 
supposed  to  be  the  writers  of  these  epistles,  are  monks  or 
students  of  theology.  The  letters  themselves  are  written 
in  dog-Latin,  —  a  burlesque  of  the  language  in  which  ec- 
clesiastical people  then  addressed  each  other.  They  are 
sketches,  satirical  but  not  malignant,  of  the  moral  and  in- 
tellectual character  of  these  reverend  personages. 

On  the  moral,  and  by  far  the  most  important,  side  of  the 
matter  I  am  still  obliged  to  be  silent ;  but  I  can  give  you 
a  few  specimens  of  the  furniture  of  the  theological  minds, 
and  of  the  subjects  with  which  they  were  occupied. 

A  student  writes  to  his  ghostly  father  in  an  agony  of  dis- 
tress because  he  has  touched  his  hat  to  a  Jew.  He  mistook 
him  for  a  doctor  of  divinity ;  and,  on  the  whole,  he  fears  he 
has  committed  mortal  sin.  Can  the  father  absolve  him  ? 
Can  the  bishop  absolve  him  ?  Can  the  Pope  absolve  him  ? 
His  case  seems  utterly  desperate. 

Another  letter  describes  a  great  intellectual  riddle,  which 


62  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

was  argued  for  four  days  at  the  School  of  Logic  at  Lou 
vaine.  A  certain  Master  of  Arts  had  taken  out  his  degree 
at  Louvaine,  Leyden,  Paris,  Oxford,  Cambridge,  Padua, 
and  four  other  universities.  He  was  thus  a  member  of  ten 
universities.  But  how  could  a  man  be  a  member  of  ten 
universities  ?  A  university  was  a  body,  and  one  body  might 
have  many  members ;  but  how  one  member  could  have 
many  bodies,  passed  comprehension.  In  such  a  monstrous 
anomaly,  the  member  would  be  tile  body,  and  the  universi- 
ties the  member,  and  this  would  be  a  scandal  to  such  grave 
and  learned  corporations.  The  holy  doctor  St.  Thomas 
himself  could  not  make  himself  into  the  body  of  ten  uni- 
versities. 

The  more  the  learned  men  argued,  the  deeper  they 
floundered,  and  at  length  gave  up  the  problem  in  despair. 

Again  :  a  certain  professor  argues  that  Julius  Caesar 
could  not  have  written  the  book  which  passes  under  the 
name  of  "  Csesar's  Commentaries,"  because  that  book  is 
written  in  Latin,  and  Latin  is  a  difficult  language ;  and  a 
man  whose  life  is  spent  in  marching  and  fighting  has  noto- 
riously no  time  to  learn  Latin. 

Here  is  another  fellow  —  a  monk  this  one  —  describing 
to  a  friend  the  wonderful  things  which  he  has  seen  in 
Rome. 

u  You  may  have  heard,"  he  says,  "  how  the  Pope  did  pos- 
sess a  monstrous  beast  called  an  Elephant.  The  Pope  did 
entertain  for  this  beast  a  very  great  affection,  and  now,  be- 
hold !  it  is  dead.  When  it  fell  sick,  the  Pope  called  his  doc- 
tors about  him  in  great  sorrow,  and  said  to  them, '  If  it  be 
possible,  heal  my  elephant.'  Then  they  gave  the  elephant 
a  purge,  which  cost  five  hundred  crowns,  but  it  did  not 
avail,  and  so  the  beast  departed ;  and  the  Pope  grieves 
much  for  his  elephant,  for  it  was  indeed  a  miraculous  beast, 
with  a  long,  long,  prodigious  long  nose  ;  and  when  it  saw 
the  Pope  it  kneeled  down  before  him  and  said,  with  a  terri- 
ble voice, '  Bar,  bar,  bar ! ' ' 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  63 

I  will  not  tire  you  with  any  more  of  this  nonsense,  espe- 
cially as  I  cannot  give  you  the  really  characteristic  parts 
of  the  book. 

I  want  you  to  observe,  however,  what  Sir  Thomas  More 
says  of  it,  and  nobody  will  question  that  Sir  Thomas  More 
was  a  good  Catholic  and  a  competent  witness.  "These 
epistles,"  he  says,  "  are  the  delight  of  every  one.  The  wise 
enjoy  the  wit ;  the  blockheads  of  monks  take  them  seri- 
ously, and  believe  that  they  have  been  written  to  do  them 
honor.  "When  we  laugh,  they  think  we  are  laughing  at  the 
style,  which  they  admit  to  be  comical.  But  they  think  the 
style  is  made  up  for  by  the  beauty  of  the  sentiment.  The 
scabbard,  they  say,  is  rough,  but  the  blade  within  it  is  di- 
vine. The  deliberate  idiots  would  not  have  found  out  the 
jest  for  themselves  in  a  hundred  years." 

Well  might  Erasmus  exclaim,  "  What  fungus  could  be 
more  stupid  ?  Yet  these  are  the  Atlases  who  are  to  uphold 
the  tottering  Church  ! " 

"  The  monks  had  a  pleasant  time  of  it,"  says  Luther. 
"  Every  brother,  had  two  cans  of  beer  and  a  quart  of  wine 
for  his  supper,  with  gingerbread,  to  make  him  take  to  his 
liquor  kindly.  Thus  the  poor  things  came  to  look  like 
fiery  angels." 

And  more  gravely,  "  In  the  cloister  f  tile  the  seven  deadly 
sins,  —  covetousness,  lasciviousness,  uncleanness,  hate,  envy, 
idleness,  and  the  loathing  of  the  service  of  God." 

Consider  such  men  as  these  owning  a  third,  a  half,  some- 
times two  thirds,  of  the  land  in  every  country  in  Europe, 
and,  in  addition  to  their  other  sins,  neglecting  all  the  duties 
attaching  to  this  property,  the  woods  cut  down  and  sold, 
the  houses  falling  to  ruin,  unthrift,  neglect,  waste  every- 
where and  in  every  thing ;  the  shrewd  making  the  most 
of  their  time,  which  they  had  sense  to  see  might  be  a  short 
one;  the  rest  dreaming  on  in  sleepy  sensuality,  dividing 
their  hours  between  the  chapel,  the  pot-house,  and  the 
brothel. 


64  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

I  do  not  think  that,  Ji  its  main  features,  the  truth  of  this 
sketch  can  be  impugned ;  and,  if  it  be  just  even  in  outline, 
then  a  reformation  of  some  kind  or  other  was  overwhelm- 
ingly necessary.  Corruption  beyond  a  certain  point  be- 
comes unendurable  to  the  coarsest  nostril.  The  constitu- 
tion of  human  things  cannot  away  with  it. 

Something  was  to  be  done  ;  but  what,  or  how  ?  There 
were  three  possible  courses. 

Either  the  ancient  discipline  of  the  Church  might  TJC 
restored  by  the  heads  of  the  Church  themselves. 

Or,  secondly,  a  higher  tone  of  feeling  might  gradually  be 
introduced  among  clergy  and  laity  alike,  by  education  and 
literary  culture.  The  discovery  of  the  printing-press  had 
made  possible  a  diffusion  of  knowledge  which  had  been 
unattainable  in  earlier  ages.  The  ecclesiastical  constitu- 
tion, like  a  sick  human  body,  might  recover  its  tone  if  a 
better  diet  were  prepared  for  it. 

Or,  lastly,  the  common  sense  of  the  laity  might  take  the 
matter  at  once  into  their  own  hands,  and  make  free  use  of 
the  pruning-knife  and  the  sweeping-brush.*  There  might 
be  much  partial  injustice,  much  violence,  much  wrong- 
headedness  ;  but  the  people  would,  at  any  rate,  go  direct  to 
the  point,  and  the  question  was  whether  any  other  remedy 
would  serve. 

The  first  of  these  alternatives  may  at  once  be  dismissed. 
The  heads  of  the  Church  were  the  last  persons  in  the  world 
to  discover  that  any  thing  was  wrong.  People  of  that  sort 
always  are.  For  them,  the  thing  as  it  existed  answered 
excellently  well.  They  had  boundless  wealth,  and  all  but 
boundless  power.  What  could  they  ask  for  more  ?  No 
monk  drowsing  over  his  wine-pot  was  less  disturbed  by 
anxiety  than  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  high  dignitaries  who 
were  living  on  the  eve  of  the  judgment  day,  and  believed 
that  their  seat  was  established  for  them  forever. 

The  character  of  the  great  ecclesiastics  of  that  day  you 
may  infer  from  a  single  example.  The  Archbishop  of 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  65 

Mayence  was  one  of  the  most  enlightened  Churchmen  in 
Germany.  He  was  a  patron  of  the  Renaissance,  a  friend 
of  Erasmus,  a  liberal,  an  intelligent,  and,  as  times  went, 
and  considering  his  trade,  an  honorable,  high-minded  man. 

When  the  Emperor  Maximilian  died,  and  the  imperial 
throne  was  vacant,  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence  was  one  of 
seven  electors  who  had  to  choose  a  new  emperor. 

There  were  two  competitors,  Francis  the  First  and  Maxi- 
milian's grandson,  afterwards  the  well-known  Charles  the 
Fifth. 

Well,  of  the  seven  electors  six  were  bribed.  John  Fred- 
erick of  Saxony,  Luther's  friend  and  protector,  was  the 
only  one  of  the  party  who  came  out  of  the  business  with 
clean  hands. 

But  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence  took  bribes  six  times 
alternately  from  both  the  candidates.  He  took  money  as 
coolly  as  the  most  rascally  "ten-pound  householder  in  Yar- 
mouth or  Totnes,  and  finally  drove  a  hard  bargain  for  his 
actual  vote. 

The  grape  does  not  grow  upon-  the  blackthorn ;  nor  does 
healthy  reform  come  from  high  dignitaries  like  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Mayence. 

The  other  aspect  of  the  problem  I  shall  consider  in  the 
following  Lectures. 


LECTURE  II. 

IN  the  year  1467,  —  the  year  in  which  Charles  the  Bold 
became  Duke  of  Burgundy;  four  years  before  the  great 
battle  of  Barnet,  which  established  our  own  fourth  Edward 
on  the  English  throne ;  about  the  time  when  William 
Caxton  was  setting  up  his  printing-press  at  "Westminster,  — 
there  was  born  at  Rotterdam,  on  the  28th  of  October, 
Desiderius  Erasmus.  His  parents,  who  were  middle-class 
people,  were  well-to-do  in  the  world.  For  some  reason  or 
other  they  were  prevented  from  marrying  by  the  interfer- 
ence of  relations.  The  father  died  soon  after  in  a  cloister : 
the  mother  was  left  with  her  illegitimate  infant,  whom  she 
called  first,  after  his  father,  Gerard ;  but  afterwards,  from 
his  beauty  and  grace,  she  changed  his  name,  —  the  words 
Desiderius  Erasmus,  one  with  a  Latin,  the  other  with  a 
Greek,  derivation,  meaning  the  lovely  or  delightful  one. 

Not  long  after,  the  mother  herself  died  also.  The  little 
Erasmus  was  the  heir  of  a  moderate  fortune ;  and  his  guar- 
dians, desiring  to  appropriate  it  to  themselves,  endeavored 
to  force  him  into  a  convent  at  Brabant. 

The  thought  of  living  and  dying  in  a  house  of  religion 
was  dreadfully  unattractive  ;  but  an  orphan  boy's  resistance 
was  easily  overcome.  He  was  bullied  into  yielding,  and, 
when  about  twenty,  took  the  vows. 

The  life  of  a  monk,  which  was  uninviting  on  the  surface, 
was  not  more  lovely  when  seen  from  within. 

"  A  monk's  holy  obedience,"  Erasmus  wrote  after- 
wards, "  consists  in  what  ?  In  leading  an  honest,  chaste, 
and  sober  life  ?  Not  the  least.  In  acquiring  learning,  in 
study,  and  industry  ?  Still  less.  A  monk  may  be  a  glut- 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  67 

ton,  a  drunkard,  a  whoremonger,  an  ignorant,  stupid,  ma- 
lignant, envious  brute,  but  he  has  broken  no  vow,  he  is 
within  his  holy  obedience.  He  has  only  to  be  the  slave 
of  a  superior  as  good  for  nothing  as  himself,  and  he  is  an 
excellent  brother. 

The  misfortune  of  his  position  did  not  check  Erasmus's 
intellectual  growth.  He  was  a  brilliant,  witty,  sarcastic, 
mischievous  youth.  He  did  not  trouble  himself  to^  pine 
and  mope  ;  but,  like  a  young  thoroughbred  in  a  drove  of 
asses,  he  used  his  heels  pretty  freely. 

"While  he  played  practical  jokes  upon  the  unreverend 
fathers,  he  distinguished  himself  equally  by  his  appetite  for 
knowledge.  It  was  the  dawn  of  the  Renaissance  —  the  re- 
vival of  learning.  The  discovery  of  printing  was  reopen- 
ing to  modern  Europe  the  great  literature  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  the  writings  of  the  Christian  Fathers.  For 
studies  of  this  kind,  Erasmus,  notwithstanding  the  disad- 
vantages of  cowl  and  frock,  displayed  extraordinary  apti- 
tude. He  taught  himself  Greek  when  Greek  was  the 
language  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  monks,  only  the 
devils  spoke  in  the  wrong  place.  His  Latin  was  as 
polished  as  Cicero's ;  and  at  length  the  Archbishop  of 
Cambray  heard  of  him,  and  sent  him  to  the  University  of 
Paris. 

At  Paris  he  found  a  world  where  life  could  be  sufficiently 
pleasant,  but  where  his  religious  habit  was  every  moment 
in  his  way.  He  was  a  priest,  and  so  far  could  not  help  him- 
self. That  ink-spot  not  all  the  waters  of  the  German 
Ocean  could  wash  away.  But  he  did  not  care  for  the  low 
debaucheries,  where  the  frock  and  cowl  were  at  home. 
His  place  was  in  the  society  of  cultivated  men,  who  were 
glad  to  know  him  and  to  patronize  him ;  so  he  shook  oft 
his  order,  let  his  hair  grow,  and  flung  away  his  livery. 

The  archbishop's  patronage  was  probably  now  with- 
drawn. Life  in  Paris  was  expensive,  and  Erasmus  had  for 
several  years  to  struggle  with  poverty.  We  see  him,  how* 


68  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

ever,  for  the  most  part,  in  his  early  letters,  carrying  a 
bold  front  to  fortune  :  desponding  one  moment,  and  lark- 
ing the  next  with  a  Paris  grisette  ;  making  friends,  enjoy- 
ing good  company,  enjoying  especially  good  wine  when  he 
could  get  it;  and,  above  all,  satiating  his  literary  hunger  at 
the  library  of  the  University. 

In  this  condition,  when  about  eight  and  twenty,  he  made 
acquaintance  with  two  young  English  noblemen  who  were 
travelling  on  the  Continent,  Lord  Mountjoy  and  one  of  the 
Greys. 

Mountjoy,  intensely  attracted  by  his  brilliance,  took  him 
for  his  tutor,  carried  him  over  to  England,  and  introduced 
him  at  the  Court  of  Henry  the  Seventh.  At  once  his 
fortune  was  made.  He  charmed  every  one,  and  in  turn 
he  was  himself  delighted  with  the  country  and  the  people. 
English  character,  English  hospitality,  English  manners  — 
every  thing  English  except  the  beer  —  equally  pleased  him. 
In  the  young  London  men  — the  lawyers,  the  noblemen, 
even  in  some  of  the  clergy  —  he  found  his  own  passion 
for  learning.  Sir  Thomas  More,  who  was  a  few  j-ears 
younger  than  himself,  became  his  dearest  friend;  and 
Warham,  afterwards  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  —  Fisher, 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Rochester  —  Colet,  the  famous  Dean 
of  St.  Paul's  —  the  great  Wolsey  himself —  recognized  and 
welcomed  the  rising  star  of  European  literature. 

Money  flowed  in  upon  him.  Warham  gave  him  a  ben- 
efice in  Kent,  which  was  afterwards  changed  to  a  pen- 
sion. Prince  Henry,  when  he  became  king,  offered  him 

—  kings  in  those  days  were  not  bad  friends  to  literature 

—  Henry  offered  him,  if  he  would  remain  in  England,  a 
house  large  enough  to  be  called  a  palace,  and  a  pension 
which,   converted   into  our  money,  would  be  a  thousand 
pounds  a  year. 

Erasmus,  however,  was  a  restless  creature,  and  did  not 
like  to  be  caged  or  tethered.  He  declined  the  king's  terms, 
but  Mountjoy  settled  a  pension  on  him  instead.  He  had 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  69 

.now  a  handsome  income,  and  he  understood  the  art  of  en- 
joying it.  He  moved  about  as  he  pleased  —  now  to  Cam- 
bridge, now  to  Oxford,  and  as  the  humor  took  him,  back 
again  to  Paris  ;  now  staying  with  Sir  Thomas  More  at  Chel- 
sea, now  going  a  pilgrimage  with  Dean  Colet  to  Becket's 
tomb  at  Canterbury  —  but  always  studying,  always  gath- 
ering knowledge,  and  throwing  it  out  again,  steeped  in  his 
own  mother  wit,  in  shining  Essays  or  Dialogues  which  were 
the  delight  and  the  despair  of  his  contemporaries. 

Everywhere,  in  his  love  of  pleasure,  in  his  habits  of 
thought,  in  his  sarcastic  skepticism,  you  see  the  healthy, 
clever,  well-disposed,  tolerant,  epicurean,  intellectual  man 
of  the  world. 

He  went,  as  I  said,  with  Dean  Colet  to  Becket's  tomb. 
At  a  shrine  about  Canterbury  he  was  shown  an  old  shoe 
which  tradition  called  the  Saint's.  At  the  tomb  itself,  the 
great  sight  was  a  handkerchief  which  a  monk  took  from 
among  the  relics,  and  offered  it  to  the  crowd  to  kiss.  The 
worshipers  touched  it  in  pious  adoration,  with  clasped 
hands  and  upturned  eyes.  If  the  thing  was  genuine,  as 
Erasmus  observed,  it  had  but  served  for  the  archbishop  to 
wipe  his  nose  with ;  and  Dean  Colet,  a  Puritan  before  his 
time,  looked  on  with  eyes  flashing  scorn,  and  scarcely  able 
to  keep  his  hands  off  the  exhibitors.  But  Erasmus 
smiled  kindly,  reflecting  that  mankind  were  fools,  and  in 
some  form  or  other,  would  remain  fools.  He  took  notice 
only  of  the  pile  of  gold  and  jewels,  and  concluded  that 
so  much  wealth  might  prove  dangerous  to  its  possessors. 

The  peculiarities  of  the  English  people  interested  and 
amused  him.  "  You  are  going  to  England,"  he  wrote 
afterwards  to  a  friend ;  "  you  will  not  fail  to  "be  pleased. 
You  will  find  the  great  people  there  most  agreeable  and 
gracious ;  only  be  careful  not  to  presume  upon  their  inti- 
macy. They  will  condescend  to  your  level,  but  do  not  you 
therefore  suppose  that  you  stand  upon  theirs.  The  noble 
lords  are  gods  in  their  own  eyes." 


70  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

"For  the  other  classes,  be  courteous,  give  your  right 
hand,  do  not  take  the  wall,  do  not  push  yourself.  Smile 
on  whom  you  please,  but  trust  no  one  that  you  do  not 
know ;  above  all,  speak  no  evil  of  England  to  them.  They 
are  proud  of  their  country  above  all  nations  in  the  world, 
as  they  have  good  reason  to  be." 

These  directions  might  have  been  written  yesterday. 
The  manners  of  the  ladies  have  somewhat  changed. 
"  English  ladies,"  says  Erasmus,  "  are  divinely  pretty,  and 
too  good-natured.  They  have  an  excellent  custom  among 
them,  that  wherever  you  go  the  girls  kiss  you.  They  kiss 
you  when  you  come,  they  kiss  you  when  you  go,  they  kiss 
you  at  intervening  opportunities ;  and  their  lips  are  soft, 
warm,  and  delicious."  Pretty  well  that  for  a  priest ! 

The  custom,  perhaps,  was  not  quite  so  universal  as  Eras- 
mus would  have  us  believe.  His  own  coaxing  ways  may 
have  had  something  to  do  with  it.  At  any  rate,  he  found 
England  a  highly  agreeable  place  of  residence. 

Meanwhile,  his  reputation  as  a  writer  spread  over  the 
world.  Latin,  the  language  in  which  he  wrote,  was  in  uni- 
versal use.  It  was  the  vernacular  of  the  best  society  in 
Europe,  and  no  living  man  was  so  perfect  a  master  of  it. 
His  satire  flashed  about  among  all  existing  institutions, 
scathing  especially  his  old  enemies  the  monks ;  while  the 
great  secular  clergy,  who  hated  the  religious  orders,  were 
delighted  to  see  them  scourged,  and  themselves  to  have  the 
reputation  of  being  patrons  of  toleration  and  reform. 

Erasmus,  as  he  felt  his  ground  more  sure  under  him, 
obtained  from  Julius  the  Second  a  distinct  release  from  his 
monastic  vows ;  and  shortly  after,  when  the  brilliant  Leo 
succeeded  to  the  tiara,  and  gathered  about  him  the  magnifi- 
cent cluster  of  artists  who  have  made  his  era  so  illustrious, 
the  new  Pope  invited  Erasmus  to  visit  him  at  Rome,  and 
become  another  star  in  the  constellation  which  surrounded 
the  Papal  throne. 

Erasmus  was  at  this  time  forty  years  old,  the  age  when 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  71 

ambition  becomes  powerful  in  men,  and  takes  the  place  of 
love  of  pleasure.  He  was  received  at  Rome  with  princely 
distinction,  and  he  could  have  asked  for  nothing  —  bishop- 
rics, red  hats,  or  red  stockings  —  which  would  not  have 
been  freely  given  to  him  if  he  would  have  consented  to 
remain. 

But  he  was  too  considerable  a  man  to  be  tempted  by 
finery  ;  and  the  Pope's  livery,  gorgeous  though  it  might  be, 
was  but  a  livery  after  all.  Nothing  which  Leo  the  Tenth 
could  do  for  Erasmus  could  add  lustre  to  his  coronet. 
More  money  he  might  have  had,  but  of  money  he  had 
already  abundance,  and  outward  dignity  would  have  been 
dearly  bought  by  gilded  chains.  He  resisted  temptation  ; 
he  preferred  the  northern  air,  where  he  could  breathe  at 
liberty,  and  he  returned  to  England,  half  inclined  to  make 
his  home  there. 

But  his  own  sovereign  laid  claim  to  his  services ;  the 
future  emperor  recalled  him  to  the  Low  Countries,  settled 
a  handsome  salary  upon  him,  and  established  him  at  the 
University  of  Louvaine. 

He  was  now  in  the  zenith  of  his  greatness.  He  had  an 
income  as  large  as  many  an  English  nobleman.  We  find 
him  corresponding  with  popes,  cardinals,  kings,  and  states- 
men ;  and,  as  he  grew  older,  his  mind  became  more  fixed 
upon  serious  subjects.  The  ignorance  and  brutality  of  the 
monks,  the  corruption  of  the  spiritual  courts,  the  absolute 
irreligion  in  which  the  Church  was  steeped,  gave  him  seri- 
ous alarm.  He  had  no  enthusiasms,  no  doctrinal  fanati- 
cisms, no  sectarian  beliefs  or  superstitions.  The  breadth 
of  his  culture,  his  clear  understanding,  and  the  worldly 
moderation  of  his  temper,  seemed  to  qualify  him  above  liv- 
ing men  to  conduct  a  temperate  reform.  He  saw  that  the 
system  around  him  was  pregnant  with  danger,  and  he  re- 
solved to  devote' what  remained  to  him  of  life  to  the  intro- 
duction of  a  higher  tone  in  the  minds  of  the  clergy. 

The  revival  of  learning  had  by  this  time  alarmed  the 


72  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Lutlier. 

religious  orders.  Literature  and  education,  beyond  the 
code  of  the  theological  text-books,  appeared  simply  devilish 
to  them.  When  Erasmus  returned  to  Louvaine,  the  battle 
was  raging  over  the  North  of  Europe. 

The  Dominicans  at  once  recognized  in  Erasmus  their 
most  dangerous  enemy.  At  first  they  tried  to  compel  him 
to  reenter  the  order,  but,  strong  in  the  Pope's  dispensation, 
he  was  so  far  able  to  defy  them.  They  could  bark  at  his 
heels,  but  dared  not  come  to  closer  quarters  ;  and  with  his 
temper  slightly  ruffled,  but  otherwise  contented  to  despise 
them,  he  took  up  boldly  the  task  which  he  had  set  him- 
self. 

"  We  kiss  the  old  shoes  of  the  saints,"  he  said,  "  but  we 
never  read  their  works."  He  undertook  the  enormous 
labor  of  editing  and  translating  selections  from  the  writings 
of  the  Fathers.  The  New  Testament  was  as  little  known 
as  the  lost  books  of  Tacitus  ;  all  that  the  people  knew  of 
the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  were  the  passages  on  which 
theologians  had  built  up  the  Catholic  formulas.  Erasmus 
published  the  text,  and  with  it,  and  to  make  it  intelligible, 
a  series  of  paraphrases,  which  rent  away  the  veil  of  tradi- 
tional and  dogmatic  interpretation,  and  brought  the  teach- 
ing of  Christ  and  the  Apostles  into  their  natural  relation 
with  reason  and  conscience. 

In  all  this,  although  the  monks  might  curse,  he  had 
countenance  and  encouragement  from  the  great  ecclesias- 
tics in  all  parts  of  Europe  ;  and  it  is  highly  curious  to  see 
the  extreme  freedom  with  which  they  allowed  him  to  pro- 
pose to  them  his  plans  for  a  reformation  ;  we  seem  to  be 
listening  to  the  wisest  of  modern  broad  Churchmen. 

O 

To  one  of  his  correspondents,  an  archbishop,  he 
writes :  — 

"  Let  us  have  done  with  theological  refinements.  There 
is  an  excuse  for  the  Fathers,  because  the  heretics  forced 
them  to  define  particular  points  ;  but  every  definition  is  a 
misfortune,  and  for  us  to  persevere  in  the  same  way  is 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  7S 

sheer  folly.  Is  no  man  to  be  admitted  to  grace  who  does 
not  know  how  the  Father  differs  from  the  Son,  and  both 
from  the  Spirit  ?  or  how  the  nativity  of  the  Son  differs  from 
the  procession  of  the  Spirit  ?  Unless  I  forgive  my  brother 
his  sins  against  me,  God  will  not  forgive  me  my  sins.  Un- 
less I  have  a  pure  heart  —  unless  I  put  away  envy,  hate, 
pride,  avarice,  lust,  I  shall  not  see  God.  But  a  man  is  not 
damned  because  he  cannot  tell  whether  the  Spirit  has  one 
principle  or  two.  Has  he  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  ?  That 
is  the  question.  Is  he  patient,  kind,  good,  gentle,  modest, 
temperate,  chaste  ?  Inquire  if  you  will,  but  do  not  define. 
True  religion  is  peace,  and  we  cannot  have  peace  unless 
we  leave  the  conscience  unshackled  on  obscure  points  on 
which  certainty  is  impossible.  We  hear  now  of  questions 
being  referred  to  the  next  (Ecumenical  Council :  better 
a  great  deal  refer  them  to  doomsday.  Time  was  when  a 
man's  faith  was  looked  for  in  his  life,  not  in  the  Articles 
which  he  professed.  Necessity  first  brought  articles  upon 
us,  and  ever  since  we  have  refined  and  refined  till  Chris- 
tianity has  become  a  thing  of  words  and  creeds.  Articles 
increase,  sincerity  vanishes  away,  contention  grows  hot, 
and  charity  grows  cold.  Then  comes  in  the  civil  power, 
with  stake  and  gallows,  and  men  are  forced  to  profess  what 
they  do  not  believe,  to  pretend  to  love  what  in  fact  they 
hate,  and  to  say  that  they  understand  what  in  fact  has  no 
meaning  for  them." 

Again,  to  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence  :  — 
•;  Reduce  the  dogmas  necessary  to  be  believed,  to  the 
smallest  possible  number ;  you  can  do  it  without  danger  to 
the  realities  of  Christianity.  On  other  points,  either  dis- 
courage inquiry,  or  leave  every  one  free  to  believe  what  he 
pleases ;  then  we  shall  have  no  more  quarrels,  and  religion 
will  again  take  hold  of  life.  When  you  have  done  this,  you 
can  correct  the  abuses  of  which  the  world  with  good  reason 
complains.  The  unjust  judge  heard  the  widow's  prayer 
You  should  not  shut  your  ears  to  the  cries  of  those  for 


74  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

whom  Christ  died.  He  did  not  die  for  the  great  only,  but 
for  the  poor  and  for  the  lowly.  There  need  be  no  tumult 
Do  you  only  set  human  affections  aside,  and  let  kings  and 
princes  lend  themselves  heartily  to  the  public  good.  But 
observe  that  the  monks  and  friars  be  allowed  no  voice ; 
with  these  gentlemen  the  world  has  borne  too  long.  They 
care  only  for  their  own  vanity,  their  own  stomachs,  their 
own  power  ;  and  they  believe  that  if  the  people  are  enlight- 
ened, their  kingdom  cannot  stand." 

Once  more  to  the  Pope  himself:  — 

'•'  Let  each  man  amend  first  his  own  wicked  life.  When 
he  has  done  that,  and  will  amend  his  neighbor,  let  him  put 
on  Christian  charity,  which  is  severe  enough  when  severity 
is  needed.  If  your  holiness  give  power  to  men  who  neither 
believe  in  Christ  nor  care  for  you,  but  think  only  of  their 
own  appetites,  I  fear  there  will  be  danger.  "We  can  trust 
your  holiness,  but  there  are  bad  men  who  will  use  your  vir- 
tues as  a  cloak  for  their  own  malice." 

That  the  spiritual  rulers  of  Europe  should  have  allowed 
a  man  like  Erasmus  to  use  language  such  as  this  to  them 
is  a  fact  of  supreme  importance.  It  explains  the  feeling 
of  Goethe,  that  the  world  would  have  gone  on  better  had 
there  been  no  Luther,  and  that  the  revival  of  theological 
fanaticism  did  more  harm  than  good. 

But  the  question  of  questions  is,  what  all  this  latitudina- 
rian  philosophizing,  this  cultivated  epicurean  gracefulness 
would  have  come  to  if  left  to  itself;  or  rather,  what  was 
the  effect  which  it  was  inevitably  producing  ?  If  you  wish 
to  remove  an  old  building  without  bringing  it  in  ruins 
about  your  ears,  you  must  begin  at  the  top,  remove  the 
stones  gradually  downwards,  and  touch  the  foundation  last. 
But  latitudinarianism  loosens  the  elementary  principles  of 
theology.  It  destroys  the  premises  on  which  the  dogmatic 
system  rests.  It  would  beg  the  question  to  say  that  this 
would  in  itself  have  been  undesirable ;  but  the  practical 
effect  of  it,  as  the  world  then  stood,  would  have  only  been 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  75 

to  make  the  educated  into  infidels,  and  to  leave  the  multi- 
tude to  a  convenient  but  debasing  superstition. 

The  monks  said  that  Erasmus  laid  the  egg,  and  Luther 
hatched  a  cockatrice.  Erasmus  resented  deeply  such  an 
account  of  his  work ;  but  it  was  true  after  all.  The  skep- 
tical philosophy  is  the  most  powerful  of  solvents,  but  it  has 
no  principle  of  organic  life  in  it ;  and  what  of  truth  there 
was  in  Erasmus's  teaching  had  to  assume  a  far  other  form 
before  it  was  available  for  the  reinvigoration  of  religion. 
He  himself,  in  his  clearer  moments,  felt  his  own  incapacity, 
and  despaired  of  making  an  impression  on  the  mass  of  ig- 
norance with  which  he  saw  himself  surrounded. 

"  The  stupid  monks,"  he  writes,  "  say  mass  as  a  cobbler 
makes  a  shoe  ;  they  come  to  the  altar  reeking  from  their 
filthy  pleasures.  Confession  with  the  monks  is  a  cloak  to 
steal  the  people's  money,  to  rob  girls  of  their  virtue,  and 
commit  other  crimes  too  horrible  to  name  !  Yet  these 
people  are  the  tyrants  of  Europe.  The  Pope  himself  is 
afraid  of  them." 

"  Beware  !  "  he  says  to  an  impetuous  friend,  —  "  beware 
how  you  offend  the  monks.  You  have  to  do  with  an  enemy 
that  cannot  be  slain ;  an  order  never  dies,  and  they  will 
not  rest  till  they  have  destroyed  you." 

The  heads  of  the  Church  might  listen  politely,  but  Eras- 
mus had  no  confidence  in  them.  "Never,"  he  says,  "was 
there  a  time  when  divines  were  greater  fools,  or  popes  and 
prelates  more  worldly."  Germany  was  about  to  receive  a 
signal  illustration  of  the  improvement  which  it  was  to  look 
for  from  liberalism  and  intellectual  culture. 

We  are  now  on  the  edge  of  the  great  conflagration. 
Here  we  must  leave  Erasmus  for  the  present.  I  must  carry 
you  briefly  over  the  history  of  the  other  great  person  who 
was  preparing  to  play  his  part  on  the  stage.  You  have 
seen  something  of  what  Erasmus  was  ;  you  must  turn  next 
to  the  companion  picture  of  Martin  Luther.  You  will  ob- 
serve in  how  many  points  their  early  experiences  touch, 


76  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther, 

as  if  to  show  more  vividly  the  contrast  between  the  two 
men. 

Sixteen  years  after  the  birth  of  Erasmus,  therefore  in 
the  year  1483,  Martin  Luther  came  into  the  world  in  a 
peasant's  cottage,  at  Eisleben,  in  Saxony.  By  peasant,  you 
need  not  understand  a  common  boor.  Hans  Luther,  the 
father,  was  a  thrifty,  well-to-do  man  for  his  station  in  life  — 
adroit  with  his  hands,  and  able  to  do  many  useful  things, 
from  farm  work  to  digging  in  the  mines.  The  family  life 
was  strict  and  stern  —  rather  too  stern,  as  Martin  thought 
in  later  life.  .  . 

u  Be  temperate  with  your  children,"  he  said  long  after,  to 
a  friend  ;  "punish  them  if  they  lie  or  steal,  but  be  just  in 
what  you  do.  It  is  a  lighter  sin  to  take  pears  and  apples 
than  to  take  money.  I  shudder  when  I  think  of  what  I 
went  through  myself.  My  mother  beat  me  about  some 
nuts  once  till  the  blood  came.  I  had  a  terrible  time  of  it, 
but  she  meant  well." 

At  school,  too,  he  fell  into  rough  hands,  and  the  recol- 
lection of  his  sufferings  made  him  tender  ever  after  with 
young  boys  and  girls. 

"  Never  be  hard  with  children,"  he  used  to  say.  "  Many 
a  fine  character  has  been  ruined  by  the  stupid  brutality  of 
pedagogues.  The  parts  of  speech  are  a  boy's  pillory.  I 
was  myself  flogged  fifteen  times  in  one  forenoon  over  the 
conjugation  of  a  verb.  Punish  if  you  will ;  but  be  kind 
too,  and  let  the  sugar-plum  go  with  the  rod."  This  is  not 
the  language  of  a  demagogue  or  a  fanatic  ;  it  is  the  wise 
thought  of  a  tender,  human-hearted  man. 

At  seventeen,  he  left  school  for  the  University  at  Erfurt. 
It  was  then  no  shame  for  a  poor  scholar  to  maintain  him- 
self by  alms.  Young  Martin  had  a  rich  noble  voice  and  a 
fine  ear,  and  by  singing  ballads  in  the  streets  he  found 
ready  friends  and  help.  He  was  still  uncertain  with  what 
calling  he  should  take  up,  when  it  happened  that  a  young 
friend  was  killed  at  his  side  by  lightning. 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  77 

Erasmus  was  a  philosopher.  A  powder  magazine  was 
once  blown  up  by  lightning  in  a  town  where  Erasmus  was 
staying,  and  a  house  of  infamous  character  was  destroyed. 
The  inhabitants  saw  in  what  had  happened  the  Divine 
anger  against  sin.  Erasmus  told  them  that  if  there  was 
any  anger  in  the  matter,  it  was  anger  merely  with  the  folly 
which  had  stored  powder  in  an  exposed  situation. 

Luther  possessed  no  such  premature  intelligence.  He 
\vas  distinguished  from  other  boys  only  by  the  greater 
power  of  his  feelings  and  the  vividness  of  his  imagination. 
He  saw  in  his  friend's  death  the  immediate  hand  of 
ihe  great  Lord  of  the  universe.  His  conscience  was  ter- 
rified. A  life-long  penitence  seemed  necessary  to  atone 
for  the  faults  of  his  boyhood.  He  too,  like  Erasmus,  be- 
came a  monk,  not  forced  into  it,  —  for  his  father  knew  bet- 
ter what  the  holy  men  were  like,  and  had  no  wish  to  have 
a  son  of  his  among  them,  —  but  because  the  monk  of  Mar- 
tin's imagination  spent  his  nights  and  days  upon  the  stones 
in  prayer ;  and  Martin,  in  the  heat  of  his  repentance, 
longed  to  be  kneeling  at  his  side. 

In  this  mood  he  entered  the  Augustine  monastery  at  Er- 
furt. He  was  full  of  an  overwhelming  sense  of  his  own 
wretchedness  and  sinfulness.  Like  St.  Paul,  he  was  cry- 
ing to  be  delivered  from  the  body  of  death  which  he  car- 
ried about  him.  He  practiced  all  possible  austerities.  He, 
if  no  one  else,  mortified  his  flesh  with  fasting.  He  passed 
nights  in  the  chancel  before  the  altar,  or  on  his  knees  on 
the  floor  of  his  cell.  He  weakened  his  body  till  his  mind 
wandered,  and  he  saw  ghosts  and  devils.  Above  all,  he 
saw  the  flaming  image  of  his  own  supposed  guilt.  God 
required  that  he  should  keep  the  law  in  all  points.  He 
had  not  so  kept  the  law — could  not  so  keep  the  law — • 
and  therefore  he  believed  that  he  was  damned.  One 
morning,  he  was  found  senseless  and  seemingly  dead ;  a 
brother  played  to  him  on  a  flute,  and  soothed  his  senses 
back  to  consciousness. 


78  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

It  was  long  since  any  such  phenomenon  had  appeared 
among  the  rosy  friars  of  Erfurt.  They  could  not  tell  what 
to  make  of  him.  Staupitz,  the  prior,  listened  to  his  accu- 
sations of  himself  in  confession.  "  My  good  fellow,"  he 
said,  "  don't  be  so  uneasy  ;  you  have  committed  no  sins  of 
the  least  consequence  ;  you  have  not  killed  any  body,  or 
committed  adultery,  or  things  of  that  sort.  If  you  sin  to 
some  purpose,  it  is  right  that  you  should  think  about  it, 
but  don't  make  mountains  out  of  trifles." 

Very  curious  :  to  the  commonplace  man  the  uncommon- 
place  is  forever  unintelligible.  What  was  the  good  of  all 
that  excitement  —  that  agony  of  self-reproach  for  little 
things  ?  None  at  all,  if  the  object  is  only  to  be  an  ordinary 
good  sort  of  man  —  if  a  decent  fulfillment  of  the  round  of 
common  duties  is  the  be-all  and  the  end-all  of  human  life 
on  earth. 

The  plague  came  by  and  by  into  the  town.  The  com- 
monplace clergy  ran  away,  —  went  to  their  country-houses, 
went  to  the  hills,  went  anywhere,  —  and  they  wondered  in 
the  same  way  why  Luther  would  not  go  with  them.  They 
admired  him  and  liked  him.  They  told  him  his  life  was 
too  precious  to  be  thrown  away.  He  answered  quite  sim- 
ply, that  his  place  was  with  the  sick  and  dying  ;  a  monk's 
life  was  no  great  matter.  The  sun  he  did  not  doubt  would 
continue  to  shine,  whatever  became  of  him.  "  I  am  no  St. 
Paul,"  he  said  ;  "  I  am  afraid  of  death  ;  but  there  are 
things  worse  than  death,  and  if  I  die,  I  die." 

Even  a  Staupitz  could  not  but  feel  that  he  had  an  ex- 
traordinary youth  in  his  charge.  To  divert  his  mind  from 
feeding  upon  itself,  he  devised  a  mission  for  him  abroad, 
and  brother  Martin  was  dispatched  on  business  of  the  con- 
vent to  Rome. 

Luther  too,  like  Erasmus,  was  to  see  Rome  ;  but  how 
different  the  figures  of  the  two  men  there  !  Erasmus  goes 
with  servants  and  horses,  the  polished,  successful  man  of 
the  world.  Martin  Luther  trudges  penniless  and  barefoot 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  LutJier.  79 

across  the  Alps,  helped  to  a  meal  and  a  night's  rest  at  the 
monasteries  along  the  road,  or  begging,  if  the  convents 
fail  him,  at  the  farm-houses. 

He  was  still  young,  and  too  much  occupied  with  his  own 
sins  to  know  much  of  the  world  outside  him.  Erasmus 
had  no  dreams.  He  knew  the  hard  truth  on  most  things. 
But  Rome,  to  Luther's  eager  hopes,  was  the  city  of  the 
saints,  and  the  court  and  palace  of  the  Pope  fragrant  with 
the  odors  of  Paradise.  "  Blessed  Rome,"  he  cried  as  he 
entered  the  gate,  — "  Blessed  Rome,  sanctified  with  the 
blood  of  martyrs  ! " 

Alas  !  the  Rome  of  reality  was  very  far  from  blessed. 
He  remained  long  enough  to  complete  his  disenchantment. 
The  cardinals,  with  their  gilded  chariots  and  their  parasols 
of  peacocks'  plumes,  were  poor  representatives  of  the 
Apostles.  The  gorgeous  churches  and  more  gorgeous  rit- 
uals, the  pagan  splendor  of  the  paintings,  the  heathen  gods 
still  almost  worshiped  in  the  adoration  of  the  art  which 
had  formed  them,  to  Luther,  whose  heart  was  heavy  with 
thoughts  of  man's  depravity,  were  utterly  horrible.  The 
name  of  religion  was  there  :  the  thinnest  veil  was  scarcely 
spread  over  the  utter  disbelief  with  which  God  and  Christ 
were  at  heart  regarded.  Culture  enough  there  was.  It 
was  the  Rome  of  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo,  of  Perti- 
gino  and  Benvenuto ;  but  to  the  poor  German  monk,  who 
had  come  there  to  find  help  for  his  suffering  soul,  what  was 
culture  ? 

He  fled  at  the  first  moment  that  he  could.  "  Adieu ! 
Rome,"  he  said ;  "  let  all  who  would  lead  a  holy  life  depart 
from  Rome.  Every  thing  is  permitted  in  Rome  except  to 
be  an  honest  man."  He  had  no  thought  of  leaving  the 
Roman  Church.  To  a  poor  monk  like  him,  to  talk  of  leav- 
ing the  Church  was  like  talking  of  leaping  off  the  planet. 
But  perplexed  and  troubled  he  returned  to  Saxony ;  and 
his  friend  Staupitz,  seeing  clearly  that  a  monastery  was  no 
place  for  him,  recommended  him  to  the  Elector  as  Pro- 
fessor of  Philosophy  at  Wittenberg. 


80  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

The  senate  of  Wittenberg  gave  him  the  pulpit  of  the 
town  church,  and  there  at  once  he  had  room  to  show  what 
was  in  him.  "  This  monk,"  said  some  one  who  heard  him, 
"is  a  marvelous  fellow.  He  has  strange  eyes,  and  will 
give  the  doctors  trouble  by  and  by." 

He  had  read  deeply,  especially  he  had  read  that  rare 
and  almost  unknown  book,  the  "  New  Testament."  He 
was  not  cultivated  like  Erasmus.  Erasmus  spoke  the  most 
polished  Latin.  Luther  spoke  and  wrote  his  own  vernacu- 
lar German.  The  latitudinarian  philosophy,  the  analytical 
acuteness,  the  skeptical  toleration  of  Erasmus  were  alike 
strange  and  distasteful  to  him.  In  all  things  he  longed 
only  to  know  the  truth  —  to  shake  off  and  hurl  from  him 
lies  and  humbug. 

Superstitious  he  was.  He  believed  in  witches  and  devils 
and  fairies  —  a  thousand  things  without  basis  in  fact,  which 
Erasmus  passed  by  in  contemptuous  indifference.  But  for 
things  which  were  really  true  —  true  as  nothing  else  in  this 
world,  or  any  world,  is  true  —  the  justice  of  God,  the  infi- 
nite excellence  of  good,  the  infinite  hatefulness  of  evil  — 
these  things  he  believed  and  felt  with  a  power  of  passion- 
ate conviction  to  which  the  broader,  feebler  mind  of  the 
other  was  forever  a  stranger. 

We  come  now  to  the  memorable  year  1517,  when  Luther 
was  thirty-five  years  old.  A  new  cathedral  was  in  progress 
at  Rome.  Michael  Angelo  had  furnished  Leo  the  Tenth 
with  the  design  of  St.  Peter's ;  and  the  question  of  ques- 
tions was  to  find  money  to  complete  the  grandest  structure 
which  had  ever  been  erected  by  man. 

Pope  Leo  was  the  most  polished  and  cultivated  of  man- 
kind. The  work  to  be  done  was  to  be  the  most  splendid 
•which  art  could  produce.  The  means  to  which  the  Pope 
had  recourse  will  serve  to  show  us  how  much  all  that  would 
have  done  for  us. 

You  remember  what  I  told  you  about  indulgences.  The 
notable  device  of  his  Holiness  was  to  send  distinguished 


Times  of  JErasmus  and  Luther.  81 

persons  about  Europe  with  sacks  of  indulgences.  In* 
dulgences  and  dispensations !  Dispensations  to  eat  meat 
on  fast-days ;  dispensations  to  marry  one's  near  relation  ; 
dispensations  for  any  thing  and  every  thing  which  the  faith- 
ful might  wish  to  purchase  who  desired  forbidden  pleasures. 
The  dispensations  were  simply  scandalous.  The  indul- 
gences —  well,  if  a  pious  Catholic  is  asked  nowadays  what 
they  were,  he  will  say  that  they  were  the  remission  of  the 
penances  which  the  Church  inflicts  upon  earth ;  but  it  is 
also  certain  that  they  would  have  sold  cheap  if  the  people 
had  thought  that  this  was  all  that  they  were  to  get  by  them. 
As  the  thing  was  represented  by  the  spiritual  hawkers  who 
disposed  of  these  wares,  they  were  letters  of  credit  on 
Heaven.  When  the  great  book  was  opened,  the  people  be- 
lieved that  these  papers  would  be  found  entire  on  the  right 
side  of  the  account.  Debtor,  so  many  murders,  so  many 
robberies,  lies,  slanders,  or  debaucheries.  Creditor,  the 
merits  of  the  saints  placed  to  the  account  of  the  delinquent 
by  the  Pope's  letters,  in  consideration  of  value  received. 

This  is  the  way  in  which  the  pardon  system  was  prac- 
tically worked.  This  is  the  way  in  which  it  is  worked  still, 
where  the  same  superstitions  remain. . 

If  one  had  asked  Pope  Leo  whether  he  really  believed 
in  these  pardons  of  his,  he  would  have  said  officially  that 
the  Church  had  always  held  that  the  Pope  had  power  to 
grant  them. 

Had  he  told  the  truth,  he  would  have  added  privately 
that  if  the  people  chose  to  be  fools,  it  was  not  for  him  to 
disappoint  them. 

The  collection  went  on.  The  money  of  the  faithful  came 
hi  plentifully ;  and  the  pedlars  going  their  rounds  appeared 
at  last  in  Saxony. 

The  Pope  had  bought  the  support  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Mayence,  Erasmus's  friend,  by  promising  him  half  the  spoil 
which  was  gathered  in  his  province.  The  agent  was  the 
6 


82  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

Dominican  monk  Tetzel,  whose  name  has  acquired  a  for- 
lorn notoriety  in  European  history. 

His  stores  were  opened  in  town  after  town.  He  entered 
in  state.  The  streets  everywhere  were  hung  with  flags. 
Bells  were  pealed ;  nuns  and  monks  walked  in  procession 
before  and  after  him,  while  he  himself  sat  in  a  chariot,  with 
the  Papal  Bull  on  a  velvet  cushion  in  front  of  him.  The 
sale-rooms  were  the  churches.  The  altars  were  decorated, 
the  candles  lighted,  the  arms  of  St.  Peter  blazoned  con- 
spicuously on  the  roof.  Tetzel,  from  the  pulpit,  explained 
the  efficacy  of  his  medicines ;  and  if  any  profane  person 
doubted  their  power,  he  was  threatened  with  excommuni- 
cation. 

Acolytes  walked  through  the  crowds,  clinking  the  plates 
and  crying,  "  Buy !  buy ! "  The  business  went  as  merry  as 
a  marriage-bell  till  the  Dominican  came  near  to  Witten- 
berg. 

Half  a  century  before,  such  a  spectacle  would  have  ex- 
cited no  particular  attention.  The  few  who  saw  through 
the  imposition  would  have  kept  their  thoughts  to  them- 
selves ;  the  many  would  have  paid  their  money,  and  in  a 
month  all  would  have  been  forgotten. 

But  the  fight  between  the  men  of  letters  and  the  monks, 
the  writings  of  Erasmus  and  Reuchlin,  the  satires  of  Ulric 
von  Hutten,  had  created  a  silent  revolution  in  the  minds 
of  the  younger  laity. 

A  generation  had  grown  to  manhood  of  whom  the  Church 
authorities  knew  nothing  ;  and  the  whole  air  of  Germany, 
unsuspected  by  pope  or  prelate,  was  charged  with  elec- 
tricity. 

Had  Luther  stood  alone,  he,  too,  would  probably  have 
remained  silent.  What  was  he,  a  poor,  friendless,  solitary 
monk,  that  he  should  set  himself  against  the  majesty  of 
the  triple  crown  ? 

However  hateful  the  walls  of  a  dungeon,  a  man  of  sense 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  83 

confined  alone  there  does  not  dash  his  hands  against  the 
stones. 

But  Luther  knew  that  his  thoughts  were  the  thoughts 
of  thousands.  Many  wrong  things,  as  we  all  know,  have 
to  be  endured  in  this  world.  Authority  is  never  very  an- 
gelic ;  and  moderate  injustice,  a  moderate  quantity  of  lies, 
is  more  tolerable  than  anarchy. 

But  it  is  with  human  things  as  it  is  with  the  great  ice- 
bergs which  drift  southward  out  of  the  frozen  seas.  They 
swim  two  thirds  under  water,  and  one  third  above  ;  and  so 
long  as  the  equilibrium  is  sustained,  you  would  think  that 
they  were  as  stable  as  the  rocks.  But  the  sea-water  is 
warmer  than  the  air.  Hundreds  of  fathoms  down,  the 
tepid  current  washes  the  base  of  the  berg.  Silently  in 
those  far  deeps  the  centre  of  gravity  is  changed ;  and  then, 
In  a  moment,  with  one  vast  roll,  the  enormous  mass  heaves 
over,  and  the  crystal  peaks  which  had  been  glancing  so 
proudly  in  the  sunlight  are  buried  in  the  ocean  forever. 

Such  a  process  as  this  had  been  going  on  in  Germany, 
and  Luther  knew  it,  and  knew  that  the  time  was  come  for 
him  to  speak.  Fear  had  not  kept  him  back.  The  danger 
to  himself  would  be  none  the  less  because  he  would  have 
the  people  at  his  side.  The  fiercer  the  thunder-storm,  the 
greater  peril  to  the  central  figure  who  stands  out  above  the 
rest  exposed  to  it  But  he  saw  that  there  was  hope  at  last 
of  a  change;  and  for  himself — as  he  said  in  the  plague  — 
If  he  died,  he  died. 

Erasmus  admitted  frankly  for  himself  that  he  did  not 
like  danger. 

"  As  to  me,"  he  wrote  to  Archbishop  Warham,  "  I  have 
no  inclination  to  risk  my  life  for  truth.  We  have  not  all 
strength  for  martyrdom ;  and  if  trouble  come,  I  shall  imi- 
tate St.  Peter.  Popes  and  emperors  must  settle  the  creeds. 
If  they  settle  them  well,  so  much  the  better ;  if  ill,  I  shall 
keep  on  the  safe  side." 

That  is  to  say,  truth  was  not  the  first  necessity  to  Eras- 


84  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

mus.  He  would  prefer  truth,  if  he  could  have  it.  If  not, 
he  could  get  on  moderately  well  upon  falsehood.  Luther 
could  not.  Xo  matter  what  the  danger  to  himself,  if  he 
could  smite  a  lie  upon  the  head  and  kill  it,  he  was  better 
pleased  than  by  a  thousand  lives.  "We  hear  much  of 
Luther's  doctrine  about  faith.  Stripped  of  theological  ver- 
biage, that  doctrine  means  this. 

Reason  says  that,  on  the  whole,  truth  and  justice  are 
desirable  things.  They  make  men  happier  in  themselves, 
and  make  society  more  prosperous.  But  there  reason  ends, 
and  man  will  not  die  for  principles  of  utility.  Faith  says 
that  between  truth  and  lies  there  is  an  infinite  difference  ; 
one  is  of  God,  the  other  of  Satan ;  one  is  eternally  to  be 
loved,  the  other  eternally  to  be  abhorred.  It  cannot  say 
why,  in  language  intelligible  to  reason.  It  is  the  voice  of 
the  nobler  nature  in  man  speaking  out  of  his  heart. 

While  Tetzel,  with  his  bull  and  his  gilt  car,  was  coining 
to  Wittenberg,  Luther,  loyal  still  to  authority  while  there 
was  a  hope  that  authority  would  be  on  the  side  of  right, 
wrote  to  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence  to  remonstrate. 

The  archbishop,  as  we  know,  was  to  have  a  share  of 
Tetzel's  spoils ;  and  what  were  the  complaints  of  a  poor 
insignificant  monk  to  a  supreme  archbishop  who  was  in 
debt  and  wanted  money  ? 

The  Archbishop  of  Mayence  flung  the  letter  into  his 
waste-paper  basket ;  and  Luther  made  his  solemn  appeal 
from  earthly  dignities  to  the  conscience  of  the  German 
people.  He  set  up  his  protest  on  the  church  door  at  "Wit- 
tenberg ;  and,  in  ninety-five  propositions  he  challenged  the 
Catholic  Church  to  defend  Tetzel  and  his  works. 

The  Pope's  indulgences,  he  said,  cannot  take  away  sins. 
God  alone  remits  sins;  and  He  pardons  those  who  are 
penitent,  without  help  from  man's  absolutions. 

The  Church  may  remit  penalties  which  the  Church  in- 
flicts. But  the  Church's  power  is  in  this  world  only,  and 
does  not  reach  to  purgatory. 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  86 

If  God  has  thought  fit  to  place  a  man  in  purgatory,  who 
shall  say  that  it  is  good  for  him  to  be  taken  out  of  pur- 
gatory? who  shall  say  that  he  himself  desires  it. 

True  repentance  does  not  shrink  from  chastisement. 
True  repentance  rather  loves  chastisement. 

The  bishops  are  asleep.  It  is  better  to  give  to  the  poor 
than  to  buy  indulgences  ;  and  he  who  sees  his  neighbor  in 
want,  and  instead  of  helping  his  neighbor  buys  a  pardon 
for  himself,  is  doing  what  is  displeasing  to  God.  Who  is 
this  man  who  dares  to  say  that  for  so  many  crowns  the 
soul  of  a  sinner  can  be  made  whole  ? 

These,  and  like  these,  were  Luther's  propositions.  Little 
guessed  the  Catholic  prelates  the  dimensions  of  the  act 
which  had  been  done.  The  Pope,  when  he  saw  the  theses, 
smiled  in  good-natured  contempt.  "A  drunken  German 
wrote  them,"  he  said ;  "  when  he  has  slept  off  his  wine  he 
will  be  of  another  mind." 

Tetzel  bayed  defiance ;  the  Dominican  friars  took  up 
the  quarrel ;  and  Hochstrat  of  Cologne,  Reuchlin's  enemy, 
clamored  for  fire  and  fagot. 

Voice  answered  voice.  The  religious  houses  all  Ger- 
many over  were  like  kennels  of  hounds  howling  to  each 
other  across  the  spiritual  waste.  If  souls  could  not  be 
sung  out  of  purgatory,  their  occupation  was  gone. 

Luther  wrote  to  Pope  Leo  to  defend  himself;  Leo  cited 
him  to  answer  for  his  audacity  at  Rome ;  while  to  the  young 
laymen,  to  the  noble  spirits  all  Europe  over,  Wittenberg 
became  a  beacon  of  light  shining  in  the  universal  dark- 
ness. 

It  was  a  trying  time  to  Luther.  Had  he  been  a  smaller 
man,  he  would  have  been  swept  away  by  his  sudden  popu- 
larity —  he  would  have  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  some 
great  democratic  movement,  and  in  a  few  years  his  name 
would  have  disappeared  in  the  noise  and  smoke  of  anarchy. 

But  this  was  not  his  nature.  His  fellow-townsmen  were 
heartily  on  his  side.  He  remained  quietly  at  his  post  in 


86  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

the  Augustine  Church  at  Wittenberg.  If  the  powers  of 
the  world  came  down  upon  him  and  killed  him,  he  was 
ready  to  be  killed.  Of  himself  at  all  times  he  thought  in- 
finitely little ;  and  he  believed  that  his  death  would  be  as 
serviceable  to  truth  as  his  life. 

Killed  undoubtedly  he  would  have  been  if  the  clergy  could 
have  had  their  way.  It  happened,  however,  that  Saxony 
just  then  was  governed  by  a  prince  of  no  common  order. 
Were  all  princes  like  the  Elector  Frederick,  we  should 
have  no  need  of  democracy  in  this  world  —  we  should  never 
have  heard  of  democracy.  The  clergy  could  not  touch 
Luther  against  the  will  of  the  Wittenberg  senate,  unless  the 
Elector  would  help  them  ;  and,  to  the  astonishment  of 
every  body,  the  Elector  was  disinclined  to  consent.  The 
Pope  himself  wrote  to  exhort  him  to  his  duties.  The 
Elector  still  hesitated.  His  professed  creed  was  the  creed . 
in  which  the  Church  had  educated  him  ;  but  he  had  a  clear 
secular  understanding  outside  his  formulas.  When  he  read 
the  propositions,  they  did  not  seem  to  him  the  pernicious 
things  which  the  monks  said  they  were.  "  There  is  much 
in  the  Bible  about  Christ,"  he  said,  "  but  not  much  about 
Rome."  He  sent  for  Erasmus,  and  asked  him  what  he 
thought  about  the  matter. 

The  Elector  knew  to  whom  he  was  speaking.  He  wished 
for  a  direct  answer,  and  looked  Erasmus  full  and  broad  in 
the  face.  Erasmus  pinched  his  thin  lips  together.  "  Luther," 
he  said  at  length,  "  has  committed  two  sins  :  he  has  touched 
the  Pope's  crown  and  the  monks'  bellies." 

He  generously  and  strongly  urged  Frederick  not  to  yield 
for  the  present  to  Pope  Leo's  importunacy ;  and  the  Pope 
was  obliged  to  try  less  hasty  and  more  formal  methods. 

He  had  wished  Luther  to  be  sent  to  him  to  Eome,  where 
his  process  would  have  had  a  rapid  end.  As  this  could 
not  be,  the  case  was  transferred  to  Augsburg,  and  a  cardi- 
nal legate  was  sent  from  Italy  to  look  into  it. 

There  was  no  danger   of  violence   at   Augsburg.     The 


Times  of  JSrasmus  and  Luther.  87 

townspeople  there  and  everywhere  were  on  the  side  of  free- 
dom ;  and  Luther  went  cheerfully  to  defend  himself.  He 
•walked  from  "Wittenberg.  You  can  fancy  him  still  in  his 
monk's  brown  frock,  with  all  his  wardrobe  on  his  back  — 
an  apostle  of  the  old  sort.  The  citizens,  high  and  low,  at- 
tended him  to  the  gates,  and  followed  him  along  the  road, 
crying,  "  Luther  forever !  "  "  Nay,"  he  answered,  "  Christ 
forever." 

The  cardinal  legate,  being  reduced  to  the  necessity  of 
politeness,  received  him  civilly.  He  told  him,  however, 
simply  and  briefly,  that  the  Pope  insisted  on  his  recanta- 
tion, and  would  accept  nothing  else.  Luther  requested  the 
cardinal  to  point  out  to  him  where  he  was  wrong.  The 
cardinal  waived  discussion.  "  He  was  come  to  command," 
he  said,  "  not  to  argue."  And  Luther  had  to  tell  him  that 
it  could  not  be. 

Remonstrances,  threats,  entreaties,  even  bribes  were 
tried.  Hopes  of  high  distinction  and  reward  were  held 
out  to  him  if  he  would  only  be  reasonable.  To  the  am  .17.0- 
ment  of  the  proud  Italian,  a  poor  peasant's  son  —  a  misera- 
ble friar  of  a  provincial  German  town  —  was  prepared  to 
defy  the  power  and  resist  the  prayers  of  the  Sovereign  of 
Christendom.  "  What !  "  said  the  cardinal  at  last  to  him, 
"  do  you  think  the  Pope  cares  for  the  opinion  of  a  Ger- 
man boor?  The  Pope's  little  finger  is  stronger  than  all 
Germany.  Do  you  expect  your  princes  to  take  up  arms 
to  defend  you  —  you,  a  wretched  worm  like  you?  I  tell 
you,  No  !  and  where  will  you  be  then  —  where  will  you  be 
then  ?  " 

Luther  answered,  "  Then,  as  now,  in  the  hands  of  Al- 
mighty God." 

The  Court  dissolved.  The  cardinal  carried  back  his 
report  to  his  master.  The  Pope,  so  defied,  brought  out  his 
thunders  ;  he  excommunicated  Luther ;  he  wrote  again  to 
the  Elector,  entreating  him  not  to  soil  his  name  and  lineage 
by  becoming  a  protector  of  heretics  ;  and  he  required  him, 


88  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

without  further  ceremony,  to  render  up  the  criminal  to 
justice. 

The  Elector's  powei'  was  limited.  As  yet,  the  quarrel 
was  simply  between  Luther  and  the  Pope.  The  Elector 
was  by  no  means  sure  that  his  bold  subject  was  right  —  he 
was  only  not  satisfied  that  he  was  wrong  —  and  it  was  a 
serious  question  with  him  how  far  he  ought  to  go.  The 
monk  might  next  be  placed  under  the  ban  of  the  empire  ; 
and  if  he  persisted  in  protecting  him  afterwards,  Saxony 
might  have  all  the  power  of  Germany  upon  it.  He  did  not 
venture  any  more  to  refuse  absolutely.  He  temporized  and 
delayed ;  while  Luther  himself,  probably  at  the  Elector's 
instigation,  made  overtures  for  peace  to  the  Pope.  Saving 
his  duty  to  Christ,  he  promised  to  be  for  the  future  an 
obedient  son  of  the  Church,  and  to  say  no  more  about  in- 
dulgences if  Tetzel  ceased  to  defend  them. 

"  My  being  such  a  small  creature,"  Luther  said  after- 
wards, "  was  a  misfortune  for  the  Pope.  He  despised  me 
too  much  !  "What,  he  thought,  could  a  slave  like  me  do  to 
him  —  to  him,  who  was  the  greatest  man  in  the  world  ? 
Had  he  accepted  my  proposal,  he  would  have  extinguished 
me." 

But  the  infallible  Pope  conducted  himself  like  a  proud, 
irascible,  exceedingly  fallible  mortal.  To  make  terms 
with  the  town  preacher  of  "Wittenberg  was  too  prepos- 
terous. 

Just  then  the  imperial  throne  fell  vacant ;  and  the  pretty 
scandal  I  told  you  of,  followed  at  the  choice  of  his  succes- 
sor. Frederick  of  Saxony  might  have  been  elected  if  he 
had  liked  —  and  it  would  have  been  better  for  the  world 
perhaps  if  Frederick  had  been  more  ambitious  of  high  dig- 
nities—  but  the  Saxon  Prince  did  not  care  to  trouble 
himself  with  the  imperial  sceptre.  The  election  fell  on 
Maximilian's  grandson  Charles  —  grandson  also  of  Ferdi- 
nand the  Catholic  —  Sovereign  of  Spain ;  Sovereign  of 
Burgundy  and  the  Low  Countries ;  Sovereign  of  Naples 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  89 

and  Sicily ;   Sovereign  beyond  the  Atlantic,  of  the  New 
Empire  of  the  Indies. 

No  fitter  man  could  have  been  found  to  do  the  business 
of  the  Pope.     With  the  empire  of  Germany  added  to  his 
inherited  dominions,  who  could  resist  him  ? 
•  To  the  new  Emperor,  unless  the  Elector  yielded,  Luther's 
case  had  now  to  be  referred. 

The  Elector,  if  he  had  wished,  could  not  interfere.  Ger- 
many was  attentive,  but  motionless.  The  students,  the 
artisans,  the  tradesmen,  were  at  heart  with  the  Reformer; 
and  their  enthusiasm  could  not  be  wholly  repressed.  The 
press  grew  fertile  with  pamphlets  ;  and  it  was  noticed  that 
all  the  printers  and  compositors  went  for  Luther.  The 
Catholics  could  not  get  their  books  into  type  without  send- 
ing them  to  France  or  the  Low  Countries. 

Yet  none  of  the  princes  except  the  Elector  had  as  yet 
shown  him  favor.  The  bishops  were  hostile  to  a  man.  The 
nobles  had  given  no  sign  ;  and  their  place  would  be  natu- 
rally on  the  side  of  authority.  They  had  no  love  for 
bishops  —  there  was  hope  in  that;  and  they  looked  with 
no  favor  on  the  huge  estates  of  the  religious  orders.  But 
no  one  could  expect  that  they  would  peril  their  lands  and 
lives  for  an  insignificant  monk. 

There  was  an  interval  of  two  years  before  the  Emperor 
was  at  leisure  to  take  up  the  question.  The  time  was  spent 
in  angry  altercation,  boding  no  good  for  the  future. 

The  Pope  issued  a  second  bull  condemning  Luther  and 
his  works.  Luther  replied  by  burning  the  bull  in  the  great 
square  at  Wittenberg. 

At  length,  in  April  1521,  the  Diet  of  the  Empire  assem- 
bled at  Worms,  and  Luther  was  called  to  defend  himself 
in  the  presence  of  Charles  the  Fifth. 

That  it  should  have  come  to  this  at  all,  in  days  of  such 
high-handed  authority,  was  sufficiently  remarkable.  It  in- 
dicated something  growing  in  the  minds  of  men,  that  the 
so-called  Church  was  not  to  carry  things  any  longer  in  the 


90  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

old  style.  Popes  and  bishops  might  order,  but  the  laity 
intended  for  the  future  to  have  opinions  of  their  own  how 
far  such  orders  should  be  obeyed. 

The  Pope  expected  anyhow  that  the  Diet,  by  fair  means 
or  foul,  would  now  rid  him  of  his  adversary.  The  Elector, 
who  knew  the  ecclesiastical  ways  of  handling  such  matters, 
made  it  a  condition  of  his  subject  appearing,  that  he  should 
have  a  safe  -  conduct,  under  the  Emperor's  hand ;  that 
Luther,  if  judgment  went  against  him,  should  be  free  for 
the  time  to  return  to  the  place  from  which  he  had  come  ; 
and  that  he,  the  Elector,  should  determine  afterwards  what 
should  be  done  with  him. 

When  the  interests  of  the  Church  were  concerned,  safe- 
conducts,  it  was  too  welt  known,  were  poor  security.  Pope 
Clement  the  Seventh,  a  little  after,  when  reproached  for 
breaking  a  promise,  replied  with  a  smile,  "  The  Pope  has 
the  power  to  bind  and  to  loose."  Good,  in  the  eyes  of 
ecclesiastical  authorities,  meant  what  was  good  for  the 
Church ;  evil,  whatever  was  bad  for  the  Church  ;  and  the 
highest  moral  obligation  became  sin  when  it  stood  in  St. 
Peter's  way. 

There  had  been  an  outburst  of  free  thought  in  Bohemia 
a  century  and  a  half  before.  John  Huss,  Luther's  fore- 
runner, came  with  a  safe-conduct  to  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance ;  but  the  bishops  ruled  that  safe-conducts  could  not 
protect  heretics.  They  burnt  John  Huss  for  all  their 
promises,  and  they  hoped  now  that  so  good  a  Catholic  as 
Charles  would  follow  so  excellent  a  precedent.  Pope  Leo 
wrote  himself  to  beg  that  Luther's  safe-conduct  should  not 
be  observed.  The  bishops  and  archbishops,  when  Charles 
consulted  them,  took  the  same  view  as  the  Pope. 

"  There  is  something  in  the  office  of  a  bishop,"  Luther 
said,  a  year  or  two  later,  "which  is  dreadfully  demoral- 
izing. Even  good  men  change  their  natures  at  their  conse- 
cration ;  Satan  enters  into  them  as  he  entered  into  Judas, 
as  soon  as  they  have  taken  the  sop." 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  91 

It  was  most  seriously  likely  that,  if  Luther  trusted  him- 
self at  the  Diet  on  the  faith  of  his  safe-conduct,  he  would 
never  return  alive.  Rumors  of  intended  treachery  were  so 
strong,  that  if  he  refused  to  go,  the  Elector  meant  to  stand 
by  him  at  any  cost.  Should  he  appear,  or  not  appear? 
It  was  for  himself  to  decide.  If  he  stayed  away,  judgment 
would  go  against  him  by  default.  Charles  would  call  out 
the  forces  of  the  empire,  and  Saxony  would  be  invaded. 

Civil  war  would  follow,  with  insurrection  all  over  Ger- 
many, with  no  certain  prospect  except  bloodshed  and 
misery. 

Luther  was  not  a  man  to  expose  his  country  to  peril  that 
his  own  person  might  escape.  He  had  provoked  the  storm ; 
and  if  blood  was  to  be  shed,  his  blood  ought  at  least  to  be 
the  first.  He  went.  On  his  way,  a  friend  came  to  warn 
him  again  that  foul  play  was  intended,  that  he  was  con- 
demned already,  that  his  books  had  been  burnt  by  the 
hangman,  and  that  he  was  a  dead  man  if  he  proceeded. 

Luther  trembled  —  he  owned  it  —  but  he  answered, 
"  Go  to  Worms  !  I  will  go  if  there  are  as  many  devils  in 
Worms  as  there  are  tiles  upon  the  roofs  of  the  houses." 

The  roofs,  when  he  came  into  the  city,  were  crowded, 
not  with  devils,  but  with  the  inhabitants,  all  collecting  there 
to  see  him  as  he  passed.  A  nobleman  gave  him  shelter 
for  the  night ;  the  next  day  he  was  led  to  the  Town  Hall. 

No  more  notable  spectacle  had  been  witnessed  in  this 
planet  for  many  a  century  —  not,  perhaps,  since  a  greater 
than  Luther  stood  before  the  Roman  Procurator. 

There  on  the  raised  dais  sat  the  sovereign  of  half  the 
world.  There  on  either  side  of  him  stood  the  archbishops, 
the  ministers  of  state,  the  princes  of  the  empire,  gathered 
together  to  hear  and  judge  the  son  of  a  poor  miner,  who 
had  made  the  world  ring  with  his  name. 

The  body  of  the  hall  was  thronged  with  knights  and 
nobles  —  stern  hard  men  in  dull  gleaming  armor.  Luther 
in  his  brown  frock,  was  led  forward  between  their  ranks, 


92  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

The  looks  which  greeted  him  were  not  all  unfriendly.  The 
first  article  of  a  German  credo  was  belief  in  courage.  Ger- 
many had  had  its  feuds  in  times  past  with  Popes  of  Rome, 
and  they  were  not  without  pride  that  a  poor  countryman  of 
theirs  should  have  taken  by  the  beard  the  great  Italian 
priest.  They  had  settled  among  themselves  that,  come 
what  would,  there  should  be  fair  play  ;  and  they  looked  on 
half  admiring  and  half  in  scorn. 

As  Luther  passed  up  the  hall,  a  steel  baron  touched  him 
on  the  shoulder  with  his  gauntlet. 

"  Pluck  up  thy  spirit,  little  monk,"  he  said ;  "  some  of  us 
here  have  seen  warm  work  in  our  time,  but,  by  my  troth, 
nor  I  nor  any  knight  in  this  company  ever  needed  a  stout 
heart  more  than  thou  needest  it  now.  If  thou  hast  faith 
in  these  doctrines  of  thine,  little  monk,  go  on,  in  the  name 
of  God." 

"  Yes,  in  the  name  of  God,"  said  Luther,  throwing  back 
his  head.  u  In  the  name  of  God,  forward  !  " 

As  at  Augsburg,  one  only  question  was  raised.  Luther 
had  broken  the  laws  of  the  Church.  He  had  taught  doc- 
trines which  the  Pope  had  declared  to  be  false.  Would  he 
or  would  he  not  retract  ? 

As  at  Augsburg,  he  replied  briefly  that  he  would  retract 
when  his  doctrines  were  not  declared  to  be  false  merely, 
but  were  proved  to  be  false.  Then,  but  not  till  then.  That 
was  his  answer,  and  his  last  word. 

There,  as  you  understand,  the  heart  of  the  matter  indeed 
rested.  In  those  words  lay  the  whole  meaning  of  the  Ref- 
ormation. Were  men  to  go  on  forever  saying  that  this 
and  that  was  true,  because  the  Pope  affirmed  it  ?  Or  were 
Popes'  decrees  thenceforward  to  be  tried  like  the  words  of 
other  men,  by  the  ordinary  laws  of  evidence  ? 

It  required  no  great  intellect  to  understand  that  a  Pope's 
pardon,  which  you  could  buy  for  five  shillings,  could  not 
really  get  a  soul  out  of  purgatory.  It  required  a  quality 
much  rarer  than  intellect  to  look  such  a  doctrine  in  the 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  93 

face  —  sanctioned  as  it  was  by  the  credulity  of  ages,  and 
backed  by  the  pomp  and  pageantry  of  earthly  power  —  and 
say  to  it  openly,  "  You  are  a  lie."  Cleverness  and  culture 
could  have  given  a  thousand  reasons  —  they  did  then  and 
they  do  now  —  why  an  indulgence  should  be  believed  in  ; 
when  honesty  and  common  sense  could  give  but  one  rea- 
son for  thinking  otherwise.  Cleverness  and  imposture  get 
on  excellently  well  together,  —  imposture  and  veracity, 
never. 

Luther  looked  at  those  wares  of  Tetzel's,  and  said, 
"  Your  pardons  are  no  pardons  at  all  —  no  letters  of  credit 
on  Heaven,  but  flash  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Humbug,  and 
you  know  it."  They  did  know  it.  The  conscience  of  every 
man  in  Europe  answered  back,  that  what  Luther  said  was 
true. 

Bravery,  honesty,  veracity,  these  were  the  qualities  which 
were  needed  —  which  were  needed  then,  and  are  needed 
always,  as  the  root  of  all  real  greatness  in  man. 

The  first  missionaries  of  Christianity,  when  they  came 
among  the  heathen  nations,  and  found  them  worshiping 
idols,  did  not  care  much  to  reason  that  an  image  which 
man  had  made  could  not  be  God.  The  priests  might  have 
been  a  match  for  them  in  reasoning.  They  walked  up  to 
the  idol  in  the  presence  of  its  votaries.  They  threw  stones 
at  it,  spat  upon  it,  insulted  it.  "  See,"  they  said,  "  I  do  this 
to  your  God.  If  he  is  God,  let  him  avenge  himself."  • 

It  was  a  simple  argument ;  always  effective ;  easy,  and 
yet  most  difficult.  It  required  merely  a  readiness  to  be 
killed  upon  the  spot  by  the  superstition  which  it  outraged. 

And  so,  and  only  so,  can  truth  make  its  way  for  us  in 
any  such  matters.  The  form  changes,  —  the  thing  remains. 
Superstition,  folly,  and  cunning  will  go  on  to  the  end  of 
time,  spinning  their  poison  webs  around  the  consciences  of 
mankind.  Courage  and  veracity,  —  these  qualities,  and 
only  these,  avail  to  defeat  them. 

From  the  moment  that  Luther  left  the  Emperor's  prcs- 


94  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

ence  a  free  man,  the  spell  of  Absolutism  was  broken,  and 
the  victory  of  the  Reformation  secured.  The  ban  of  the 
Pope  had  fallen ;  the  secular  arm  had  been  called  to  inter- 
fere ;  the  machinery  of  authority  strained  as  far  as  it  would 
bear.  The  Emperor  himself  was  an  unconscious  convert  to 
the  higher  creed.  The  Pope  had  urged  him  to  break  his 
word.  The  Pope  had  told  him  that  honor  was  nothing,  and 
morality  was  nothing,  where  the  interests  of  orthodoxy  were 
compromised.  The  Emperor  had  refused  to  be  tempted 
into  perjury  ;  and,  in  refusing,  had  admitted  that  there  was 
a  spiritual  power  upon  the  earth,  above  the  Pope,  and 
above  him. 

The  party  of  the  Church  felt  it  so.  A  plot  was  formed 
to  assassinate  Luther  on  his  return  to  Saxony.  The  in- 
sulted majesty  of  Rome  could  be  vindicated  at  least  by  the 
dagger. 

But  this,  too,  failed.  The  Elector  heard  what  was  in- 
tended. A  party  of  horse,  disguised  as  banditti,  waylaid 
the  Reformer  upon  the  road,  and  carried  him  off  to  the 
castle  of  Wartzburg,  where  he  remained  out  of  harm's  way 
till  the  general  rising  of  Germany  placed  him  beyond  the 
reach  of  danger. 

At  Wartzburg  for  the  present  evening  we  leave  him. 

The  Emperor  Charles  and  Luther  never  met  again. 
The  monks  of  Yuste,  who  watched  on  the  death-bed  of 
Charles,  reported  that  at  the  last  hour  he  repented  that  he 
had  kept  his  word,  and  reproached  himself  for  having  al- 
lowed the  arch-heretic  to  escape  from  his  hands. 

It  is  possible  that,  when  the  candle  of  life  was  burning 
low,  and  spirit  and  flesh  were  failing  together,  and  the  air 
of  the  sick-room  was  thick  and  close  with  the  presence  of 
the  angel  of  death,  the  nobler  nature  of  the  Emperor  might 
have  yielded  to  the  influences  which  were  around  him. 
His  confessor  might  have  thrust  into  his  lips  the  words 
which  he  so  wished  to  hear. 

But  Charles  the  Fifth,  though  a  Catholic  always,  was  a 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  96 

Catholic  of  the  old  grand  type,  to  whom  creed  and  dogmas 
were  but  the  robe  of  a  regal  humanity.  Another  story  is 
told  of  Charles  —  an  authentic  story  this  one  —  which 
makes  me  think  that  the  monks  of  Yuste  mistook  or  ma- 
ligned him.  Six  and  twenty  years  after  this  scene  at 
Worms,  when  the  then  dawning  heresy  had  become  broad 
day  ;  when  Luther  had  gone  to  his  rest,  and  there  had 
gathered  about  his  name  the  hate  which  mean  men  feel  for 
an  enemy  who  has  proved  too  strong  for  them,  a  passing 
vicissitude  in  the  struggle  brought  the  Emperor  at  the  head 
of  his  army  to  Wittenberg. 

The  vengeance  which  the  monks  could  not  inflict  upon 
him  in  life,  they  proposed  to  wreak  upon  his  bones. 

The  Emperor  desired  to  be  conducted  to  Luther's  tomb  ; 
and  as  he  stood  gazing  at  it,  full  of  many  thoughts,  some 
one  suggested  that  the  body  should  be  taken  up  and  burnl 
at  the  stake  in  the  Market  Place. 

There  was  nothing  unusual  in  the  proposal ;  it  was  the 
common  practice  of  the  Catholic  Church  with  the  remains 
of  heretics,  who  were  held  unworthy  to  be  left  in  repose  in 
hallowed  ground.  There  was  scarcely,  perhaps,  another 
Catholic  prince  who  would  have  hesitated  to  comply.  But 
Charles  was  one  of  Nature's  gentlemen  ;  he  answered,  "  I 
war  not  with  the  dead." 


LECTURE  III. 

WE  have  now  entered  upon  the  movement  which  broke 
the  power  of  the  Papacy,  —  which  swept  Germany,  Swe- 
den, Denmark,  Holland,  England,  Scotland,  into  the  stream 
of  revolution,  and  gave  a  new  direction  to  the  spiritual  his- 
tory of  mankind. 

You  would  not  thank  me  if  I  were  to  take  you  out  into 
that  troubled  ocean.  I  confine  myself,  and  I  wish  you  to 
confine  your  attention,  to  the  two  kinds  of  men  who  appear 
as  leaders  in  times  of  change,  —  of  whom  Erasmus  and 
Luther  are  respectively  the  types. 

On  one  side  there  are  the  large-minded  latitudinarian 
philosophers  —  men  who  have  no  confidence  in  the  people 
—  who  have  no  passionate  convictions  ;  moderate  men,  tol- 
erant men,  who  trust  to  education,  to  general  progress  in 
knowledge  and  civilization,  to  forbearance,  to  endurance, 
to  time,  —  men  who  believe  that  all  wholesome  reforms 
proceed  downwards  from  the  educated  to  the  multitudes  ; 
who  regard  with  contempt,  qualified  by  terror,  appeals  to 
the  popular  conscience  or  to  popular  intelligence. 

Opposite  to  these  are  the  men  of  faith,  —  and  by  faith 
I  do  not  mean  belief  in  dogmas,  but  belief  in  goodness, 
belief  in  justice,  in  righteousness ;  above  all,  belief  in  truth. 
Men  of  faith  consider  conscience  of  more  importance  than 
knowledge,  —  or  rather  as  a  first  condition,  —  without 
which  all  the  knowledge  in  the  world  is  no  use  to  a  man,  if 
he  wishes  to  be  indeed  a  man  in  any  high  and  noble  sense 
of  the  word.  They  are  not  contented  with  looking  for  what 
may  be  useful  or  pleasant  to  themselves ;  they  look  by 
quite  other  methods  for  what  is  honorable,  for  what  is  good. 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  97 

for  what  is  just.  They  believe  that  if  they  can  find  out 
that,  then  at  all  hazards,  and  in  spite  of  all  present  conse- 
quences to  themselves,  that  is  to  be  preferred.  If,  individ- 
ually, and  to  themselves,  no  visible  good  ever  came  from  it, 
in  this  world  or  in  any  other,  still  they  would  say,  "  Let  us 
do  that  and  nothing  else.  Life  will  be  of  no  value  to  us 
if  we  are  to  use  it  only  for  our  own  gratification." 

The  soldier  before  a  battle  knows  that  if  he  shirks  and 
pretends  to  be  ill,  he  may  escape  danger  and  make  sure 
of  his  life.  There  are  very  few  men,  indeed,  if  it  comes  to 
that,  who  would  not  sooner  die  ten  times  over  than  so  dis- 
honor themselves.  Men  of  high  moral  nature  carry  out 
the  same  principle  into  the  details  of  their  daily  life  ;  they 
do  not  care  to  live  unless  they  may  live  nobly.  Like  my 
Uncle  Toby,  they  have  but  one  fear  —  the  fear  of  doing  a 
wrong  thing. 

I  call  this  faith,  because  there  is  no  proof,  such  as  will 
satisfy  the  scientific  inquirer,  that  there  is  any  such  thing 
as  moral  truth ;  any  such  thing  as  absolute  right  and  wrong 
at  all.  As  the  Scripture  says,  "  Verily,  thou  art  a  God  that 
hidest  thyself."  The  forces  of  Nature  pay  no  respect  to 
what  we  call  good  and  evil.  Prosperity  does  not  uniformly 
follow  virtue ;  nor  are  defeat  and  failure  necessary  conse- 
quences of  vice. 

Certain  virtues  —  temperance,  industry,  and  things  within 
reasonable  limits  —  command  their  reward.  Sensuality, 
idleness,  and  waste  commonly  lead  to  ruin. 

But  prosperity  is  consistent  with  intense  worldliness, 
intense  selfishness,  intense  hardness  of  heart ;  while  the 
grander  features  of  human  character,  —  self-sacrifice,  dis- 
regard of  pleasure,  patriotism,  love  of  knowledge,  devotion 
to  any  great  and  good  cause,  —  these  have  no  tendency  to 
bring  men  what  is  called  fortune.  They  do  not  even  neces- 
sarily promote  their  happiness ;  for  do  what  they  will  in  this 
way,  the  horizon  of  what  they  desire  to  do  perpetually  flies 
before  them.  High  hopes  and  enthusiasms  are  generally 

7 


98  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

disappointed  iu  results ;  and  the  wrongs,  the  cruelties,  the 
wretchednesses  of  all  kinds  which  forever  prevail  among 
mankind,  —  the  shortcomings  in  himself  of  which  he  be- 

*  O 

comes  more  conscious  as  he  becomes  really  better,  —  these 
things,  you  may  be  sure,  will  prevent  a  noble-minded  man 
from  ever  being  particularly  happy. 

If  you  see  a  man  happy,  as  the  world  goes,  — •  contented 
with  himself  and  contented  with  what  is  round  him,  —  such 
a  man  may  be,  and  probably  is,  decent  and  respectable ; 
but  the  highest  is  not  in  him,  and  the  highest  will  not  come 
out  of  him. 

Judging  merely  by  outward  phenomena,  judging  merely 
by  what  we  call  reason,  you  cannot  prove  that  there  is  any 
moral  government  in  the  world  at  all,  except  what  men,  for 
their  own  convenience,  introduce  into  it.  Eight  and  wrong 
resolve  themselves  into  principles  of  utility  and  social  con- 
venience. Enlightened  selfishness  prescribes  a  decent 
rule  of  conduct  for  common  purposes  ;  and  virtue,  by  a 
large  school  of  philosophy,  is  completely  resolved  into  that. 

True,  when  nations  go  on  long  on  the  selfish  hypothesis, 
they  are  apt  to  find  at  last  that  they  have  been  mistaken. 
They  find  it  in  bankruptcy  of  honor  and  character,  in  so- 
cial wreck  and  dissolution.  All  lies  in  serious  matters  end 
at  last,  as  Carlyle  says,  in  broken  heads.  That  is  the  final 
issue  which  they  are  sure  to  come  to  in  the  long  run.  The 
Maker  of  the  world  does  not  permit  a  society  to  continue 
which  -forgets  or  denies  the  nobler  principles  of  action. 

But  the  end  is  often  long  in  coming ;  and  these  nobler 
principles  are  meanwhile  not  provided  for  us  by  the  induct- 
ive philosophy. 

Patriotism,  for  instance,  of  which  we  used  to  think  some- 
thing, —  a  readiness  to  devote  our  energies  while  we  live, 
to  devote  our  lives,  if  nothing  else  will  serve,  to  what  we 
call  our  country,  —  what  are  we  to  say  of  that  ? 

I  once  asked  a  distinguished  philosopher  what  he  thought 
of  patriotism.  He  said  he  thought  it  was  a  compound  of 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  99 

vanity  and  superstition  ;  a  bad  kind  of  prejudice,  which 
would  die  out  with  the  growth  of  reason.  My  friend  be- 
lieved in  the  progress  of  humanity  ;  he  could  not  narrow 
his  sympathies  to  so  small  a  thing  as  his  own  country.  I 
could  but  say  to  myself,  "  Thank  God,  then,  we  are  not  yet 
a  nation  of  philosophers." 

A  man  who  takes  up  with  philosophy  like  that,  may  write 
fine  books,  and  review  articles  and  such  like,  but  at  the 
bottom  of  him  he  is  a  poor  caitiff,  and  there  is  no  more  to 
be  said  about  him. 

So  when  the  air  is  heavy  with  imposture,  and  men  live 
only  to  make  money,  and  the  service  of  God  is  become  a 
thing  of  words  and  ceremonies,  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  bought  and  sold,  and  all  that  is  high  and  pure  in  man  is 
smothered  by  corruption,  fire  of  the  same  kind  bursts  out 
in  higher  natures  with  a  fierceness  which  cannot  be  con- 
trolled ;  and,  confident  in  truth  and  right,  they  call  fear- 
lessly on  the  seven  thousand  in  Israel  who  have  not  bowed 
the  knee  to  Baal  to  rise  and  stand  by  them. 

They  do  not  ask  whether  those  whom  they  address  have 
wide  knowledge  of  history,  or  science,  or  philosophy ;  they 
ask  rather  that  they  shall  be  honest,  that  they  shall  be 
brave,  that  they  shall  be  true  to  the  common  light  which 
God  has  given  to  all  His  children.  They  know  well  that 
conscience  is  no  exceptional  privilege  of  the  great  or  the 
cultivated,  that  to  be  generous  and  unselfish  is  no  preroga- 
tive of  rank  or  intellect. 

Erasmus  considered  that,  for  the  vulgar,  a  lie  might  be 
as  good  as  truth,  and  often  better.  A  lie,  ascertained  to 
be  a  lie,  to  Luther  was  deadly  poison,  —  poison  to  him,  and 
poison  to  all  who  meddled  with  it.  In  his  own  genuine 
greatness,  he  was  too  humble  to  draw  insolent  distinctions 
in  his  own  favor ;  or  to  believe  that  any  one  class  on  earth 
is  of  more  importance  than  another  in  the  eyes  of  the  Great 
Maker  of  them  all. 

Well,  then,  you  know  what  I  mean  by  faith,  and  what  I 


100  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

mean  by  intellect.  It  was  not  that  Luther  was  without  in- 
tellect He  was  less  subtle,  less  learned,  than  Erasmus ; 
but  in  mother  wit,  in  elasticity,  in  force,  and  imaginative 
power,  he  was  as  able  a  man  as  ever  lived.  Luther  created 
the  German  language  as  an  instrument  of  literature.  His 
translation  of  the  Bible  is  as  rich  and  grand  as  our  own 
and  his  table-talk  as  full  of  matter  as  Shakespeare's  plays. 

Again  ;  you  will  mistake  me  if  you  think  I  represent 
Erasmus  as  a  man  without  conscience,  or  belief  in  God 
and  goodness.  But  in  Luther  that  belief  was  a  certainty ; 
in  Erasmus  it  was  only  a  high  probability,  and  the  differ- 
ence between  the  two  is  not  merely  great,  it  is  infinite.  In 
Luther,  it  was  the  root ;  in  Erasmus,  it  was  the  flower. 
In  Luther,  it  was  the  first  principle  of  life  ;  in  Erasmus,  it 
was  an  inference  which  might  be  taken  away,  and  yet  leave 
the  world  a  very  tolerable  and  habitable  place  after  all. 

You  see  the  contrast  in  their  early  lives.  You  see  Eras- 
mus, light,  bright,  sarcastic,  fond  of  pleasure,  fond  of  society, 
fond  of  wine  and  kisses,  and  intellectual  talk  and  polished 
company.  You  see  Luther  throwing  himself  into  the  clois- 
ter, that  he  might  subdue  his  will  to  the  will  of  God ;  pros- 
trate in  prayer,  in  nights  of  agony,  and  distracting  his 
easy-going  confessor  with  the  exaggerated  scruples  of  his 
conscience. 

You  see  it  in  the  effects  of  their  teaching.  You  see 
Erasmus  addressing  himself  with  persuasive  eloquence  to 
kings,  and  popes,  and  prelates ;  and  for  answer,  you  see 
Pope  Leo  sending  Tetzel  over  Germany  with  his  carriage- 
load  of  indulgences.  You  see  Erasmus's  dearest  friend, 
our  own  gifted,  admirable  Sir  Thomas  More,  taking  his  seat 
beside  the  bishops  and  sending  poor  Protestant  artisans  to 
the  stake. 

You  see  Luther,  on  the  other  side,  standing  out  before 
the  world,  one  lone  man,  with  all  authority  against  him, 
taking  lies  by  the  throat,  and  Europe  thrilling  at  his  words, 
and  saying  after  him,  "  The  reign  of  Imposture  shall  end." 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  101 

Let  us  follow  the  course  of  Erasmus  after  the  tempest 
had  broken. 

He  knew  Luther  to  be  right.  Luther  had  but  said  what 
Erasmus  had  been  all  his  life  convinced  of,  and  Luther 
looked  to  see  him  come  forward  and  take  his  place  at  his 
side.  Had  Erasmus  done  so,  the  course  of  things  would 
have  been  far  happier  and  better.  His  prodigious  reputa- 
tion would  have  given  the  Reformers  the  influence  with  the 
educated  which  they  had  won  for  themselves  with  the  mul- 
titude, and  the  Pope  would  have  been  left  without  a  friend 
to  the  north  of  the  Alps.  But  there  would  have  been  some 
danger,  —  danger  to  the  leaders,  if  certainty  of  triumph  to 
the  cause,  —  and  Erasmus  had  no  gift  for  martyrdom. 

His  first  impulse  was  generous.  He  encouraged  the 
Elector,  as  we  have  seen,  to  protect  Luther  from  the  Pope. 
"  I  looked  on  Luther,"  he  wrote  to  Duke  George  of  Saxe, 
"  as  a  necessary  evil  in  the  corruption  of  the  Church ;  a 
medicine,  bitter  and  drastic,  from  which  sounder  health 
would  follow." 

And  again,  more  boldly  :  "  Luther  has  taken  up  the 
cause  of  honesty  and  good  sense  against  abominations 
which  are  no  longer  tolerable.  His  enemies  are  men  un- 
der whose  worthlessness  the  Christian  world  has  groaned 
too  long." 

So  to  the  heads  of  the  Church  he  wrote,  pressing  them 
to  be  moderate  and  careful :  — 

"  I  neither  approve  Luther  nor  condemn  him,"  he  said 
to  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence ;  ."  if  he  is  innocent,  he 
ought  not  to  be  oppressed  by  the  factions  of  the  wicked ; 
if  he  is  in  error,  he  should  be  answered,  not  destroyed. 
The  theologians  "  —  observe  how  true  they  remain  to  the 
universal  type  in  all  times  and  in  all  countries  — "  the 
theologians  do  not  try  to  answer  him.  They  do  but  raise 
an  insane  and  senseless  clamor,  and  shriek  and  curse. 
Heresy,  heretic,  heresiarch,  schismatic,  Antichrist,  —  these 
are  the  words  which  are  in  the  mouths  of  all  of  them  ;  and 


102  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

of  course,  they  condemn  without  reading.  I  warned  them 
what  they  were  doing.  I  told  them  to  scream  less,  and  to 
think  more.  Luther's  life  they  admit  to  be  innocent  and 
blameless.  Such  a  tragedy  I  never  saw.  The  most  hu- 
mane men  are  thirsting  for  his  blood,  and  they  would 
rather  kill  him  than  mend  him.  The  Dominicans  are  the 
worst,  and  are  more  knaves  than  fools.  In  old  times,  even 
a  heretic  was  quietly  listened  to.  If  he  recanted,  he  was 
absolved ;  if  he  persisted,  he  was  at  worst  excommunicated. 
Now  they  will  have  nothing  but  blood.  Not  to  agree  with 
them  is  heresy.  To  know  Greek  is  heresy.  To  speak 
good  Latin  is  heresy.  Whatever  they  do  not  understand 
is  heresy.  Learning,  they  pretend,  has  given  birth  to  Lu- 
ther, though  Luther  has  but  little  of  it.  Luther  thinks 
more  of  the  Gospel  than  of  scholastic  divinity,  and  that  is 
his  crime.  This  is  plain  at  least,  that  the  best  men  every- 
where are  those  who  are  least  offended  with  him." 

Even  to  Pope  Leo,  in  the  midst  of  his  fury,  Erasmus 
wrote  bravely ;  separating  himself  from  Luther,  yet  depre- 
cating violence.  "  Nothing,"  he  said,  "  would  so  recom- 
mend the  new  teaching  as  the  howling  of  fools  : "  while  to 
a  member  of  Charles's  council  he  insisted  that  "  severity 
had  been  often  tried  in  such  cases  and  had  always  failed  ; 
unless  Luther  was  encountered  calmly  and  reasonably,  a 
tremendous  convulsion  was  inevitable." 

Wisely  said,  all  this,  but  it  presumed  that  those  whom  he 
was  addressing  were  reasonable  men  ;  and  high  officials, 
touched  in  their  pride,  are  a  class  of  persons  of  whom  Solo- 
mon may  have  been  thinking  when  he  said,  "  Let  a  bear 
robbed  of  her  whelps  meet  a  man  rather  than  a  fool  in  his 
folly." 

So  to  Luther,  so  to  the  people,  Erasmus  preached  mod- 
eration. It  was  like  preaching  to  the  winds  in  a  hurricane. 
The  typhoon  itself  is  not  wilder  than  human  creatures 
when  once  their  passions  are  stirred.  You  cannot  check 
them ;  but,  if  you  are  brave,  you  can  guide  them  wisely 
And  this,  Erasmus  had  not  the  heart  to  do. 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  103 

He  said  at  the  beginning,  "  I  will  not  countenance  revolt 
ngainst  authority.  A  bad  government  is  better  than  none." 
But  he  said  at  the  same  time,  "  You  bishops,  cease  to  be  cor- 
rupt ;  you  popes  and  cardinals,  reform  your  wicked  courts  ; 
you  monks,  leave  your  scandalous  lives,  and  obey  the  rules 
of  your  order,  so  you  may  recover  the  respect  of  mankind, 
and  be  obeyed  and  loved  as  before." 

When  he  found  that  the  case  was  desperate  ;  that  his 
exhortations  were  but  words  addressed  to  the  winds  ;  that 
corruption  had  tainted  the  blood  ;  that  there  was  no  hope 
except  in  revolution  —  as,  indeed,  in  his  heart  he  knew 
from  the  first  that  there  was  none  —  then  his  place  ought 
to  have  been  with  Luther. 

But  Erasmus,  as  the  tempest  rose,  could  but  stand  still 
in  feeble  uncertainty.  The  responsibilities  of  his  reputa- 
tion weighed  him  down. 

The  Lutherans  said,  "You  believe  as  we  do."  The 
Catholics  said,  "  You  are  a  Lutheran  at  heart ;  if  you  are 
not,  prove  it  by  attacking  Luther." 

tie  grew  impatient.  He  told  lies.  He  said  he  had  not 
read  Luther's  books,  and  had  no  time  to  read  them.  What 
was  he,  he  said,  that  he  should  meddle  in  such  a  quarrel. 
He  was  the  vine  and  the  fig-tree  of  the  Book  of  Judges. 
The  trees  said  to  them,  Rule  over  us.  The  vine  and  the 
fig-tree  answered,  they  would  not  leave  their  sweetness  for 
such  a  thankless  office.  "  I  am  a  poor  actor,"  he  said  ;  "  I 
prefer  to  be  a  spectator  of  the  play." 

But  he  was  sore  at  heart,  and  bitter  with  disappointment. 
All  had  been  going  on  so  smoothly  —  literature  was  reviv- 
ing, art  and  science  were  spreading,  the  mind  of  the  world 
waa  being  reformed  in  the  best  sense  by  the  classics  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  and  now  an  apple  of  discord  had  been 
flung  out  into  Europe. 

The  monks  who  had  fought  against  enlightenment  could 
point  to  the  confusion  as  a  fulfillment  of  their  prophecies  -, 
and  he,  and  all  that  he  had  done,  WHS  brought  to  disre- 
pute. 


104  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

To  protect  himself  from  the  Dominicans,  he  was  forced 
to  pretend  to  an  orthodoxy  which  he  did  not  possess. 
"Were  all  true  which  Luther  had  written,  he  pretended  that 
it  ought  not  have  been  said,  or  should  have  been  addressed 
in  a  learned  language  to  the  refined  and  educated. 

He  doubted  whether  it  was  not  better  on  the  whole  to 
teach  the  people  lies  for  their  good,  when  truth  was  beyond 
their  comprehension.  Yet  he  could  not  for  all  that  wish 
the  Church  to  be  successful. 

"  I  fear  for  that  miserable  Luther,"  he  said ;  "  the  popes 
and  princes  are  furious  with  him.  His  own  destruction 
would  be  no  great  matter,  but  if  the  monks  triumph  there 
will  be  no  bearing  them.  They  will  never  rest  till  they 
have  rooted  learning  out  of  the  land.  The  Pope  expects 
me  to  write  against  Luther.  The  orthodox,  it  appears,  can 
call  him  names  —  call  him  blockhead,  fool,  heretic,  toad- 
stool, schismatic,  and  Antichrist  —  but  they  must  come  to 
me  to  answer  his  arguments." 

"  Oh  !  that  this  had  never  been,"  he  wrote  to  our  own 
Archbishop  Warham.  "  Now  there  is  no  hope  for  any 
good.  It  is  all  over  with  quiet  learning,  thought,  piety, 
and  progress;  violence  is  on  one  side  and  folly  on  the 
other ;  and  they  accuse  me  of  having  caused  it  all.  If  I 
joined  Luther  I  could  only  perish  with  him,  and  I  do  not 
mean  to  run  my  neck  into  a  halter.  Popes  and  emperors 
must  decide  matters.  I  will  accept  what  is  good,  and  do 
as  I  can  with  the  rest.  Peace  on  any  terms  is  better  than 
the  justest  war." 

Erasmus  never  stooped  to  real  baseness.  He  was  too 
clever,  too  genuine  —  he  had  too  great  a  contempt  for 
worldly  greatness.  They  offered  him  a  bishopric  if  he 
would  attack  Luther.  He  only  laughed  at  them.  What 
was  a  bishopric  to  him  ?  He  preferred  a  quiet  life  among 
his  books  at  Louvaine. 

But  there  was  no  more  quiet  for  Erasmus  at  Louvaine 
or  anywhere.  Here  is  a  scene  between  him  and  the  Prioi 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  105 

of  the  Dominicans  in  the  presence  of  the  Rector  of  the 
University. 

The  Dominican  had  preached  at  Erasmus  in  the  Uni- 
versity pulpit.  Erasmus  complained  to  the  rector,  and  the 
rector  invited  the  Dominican  to  defend  himself.  Erasmus 
tells  the  story. 

"  I  sat  on  one  side  and  the  monk  on  the  other,  the  rec- 
tor between  us  to  prevent  our  scratching. 

"  The  monk  asked  what  the  matter  was,  and  said  he  had 
done  no  harm. 

"  I  said  he  had  told  lies  of  me,  and  that  was  harm. 

"  It  was  after  dinner.  The  holy  man  was  flushed.  He 
turned  purple. 

" '  Why  do  you  abuse  monks  in  your  books  ? '  he  said. 

" '  I  spoke  of  your  order,'  I  answered.  ( I  did  not  men- 
tion you.  You  denounced  me  by  name  as  a  friend  of  Lu- 
ther.' 

"  He  raged  like  a  madman.  '  You  are  the  cause  of  all 
this  trouble/  he  said ;  '  you  are  a  chameleon :  you  can  twist 
every  thing.' 

" '  You  see  what  a  fellow  he  is,'  said  I,  turning  to  the 
rector.  '  If  it  comes  to  calling  names,  why  I  can  do  that 
too  ;  but  let  us  be  reasonable.' 

"  He  still  roared  and  cursed ;  he  vowed  he  would  never 
rest  till  he  had  destroyed  Luther. 

"  I  said  he  might  curse  Luther  till  he  burst  himself  if  he 
pleased.  I  complained  of  his  cui'sing  me. 

"  He  answered,  that  if  I  did  not  agree  with  Luther,  I 
ought  to  say  so,  and  write  against  him. 

"  '  Why  should  I  ? '  urged  I.  '  The  quarrel  is  none  of 
mine.  Why  should  I  irritate  Luther  against  me,  when  he 
has  horns  and  knows  how  to  use  them  ?' 

"  '  Well,  then,'  said  he, '  if  you  will  not  write,  at  least  you 
can  say  that  we  Dominicans  have  had  the  best  of  the  argib 
ment.' 

" '  How  can  I  do  that  ? '  replied  1»  '  You  have  burnt  his 
books,  but  I  never  heard  that  you  had  answered  them.' 


106  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

"  He  almost  spat  upon  me.  I  understand  that  theie  is 
to  be  a  form  of  prayer  for  the  conversion  of  Erasmus  and 
Luther." 

But  Erasmus  was  not  to  escape  so  easily.  Adrian  the 
Sixth,  who  succeeded  Leo,  was  his  old  school-fellow,  and 
implored  his  assistance  in  terms  which  made  refusal  impos- 
sible. Adrian  wanted  Erasmus  to  come  to  him  to  Rome. 
He  was  too  wary  to  walk  into  the  wolf's  den.  But  Adrian 
required  him  to  write,  and  reluctantly  he  felt  that  he  must 
comply. 

What  was  he  to  say  ? 

"  If  his  Holiness  will  set  about  reform  in  good  earnest," 
he  wrote  to  the  Pope's  secretary,  "  and  if  he  will  not  be 
too  hard  on  Luther,  I  may,  perhaps,  do  good ;  but  what 
Luther  writes  of  the  tyranny,  the  corruption,  the  covetous- 
ness  of  the  Roman  court,  would,  my  friend,  that  it  was  not 
true." 

To  Adrian  himself,  Erasmus  addressed  a  letter  really 
remarkable. 

"I  cannot  go  to  your  Holiness,"  he  said;  "  King  Calculus 
will  not  let  me.  I  have  dreadful  health,  which  this  tornado 
has  not  improved.  I,  who  was  the  favorite  of  every  body, 
am  now  cursed  by  every  body,  —  at  Louvaine  by  the  monks ; 
in  Germany  by  the  Lutherans.  I  have  fallen  into  trouble 
in  my  old  age,  like  a  mouse  into  a  pot  of  pitch.  You  say, 
Come  to  Rome ;  you  might  as  well  say  to  the  crab,  Fly. 
The  crab  says,  Give  me  wings ;  I  say,  Give  me  back  my 
health  and  my  youth.  If  I  write  calmly  against  Luther  I 
shall  be  called  lukewarm  ;  if  I  write  as  he  does,  I  shall  stir 
a  hornet's  nest.  People  think  he  can  be  put  down  by  force. 
The  more  force  you  try,  the  stronger  he  will  grow.  Such 
disorders  cannot  be  cxired  in  that  way.  The  Wickliffites 
in  England  were  put  down,  but  the  fire  smouldered. 

"  If  you  mean  to  use  violence  you  have  no  need  of  me  ; 
but  mark  this  —  if  monks  and  theologians  think  only  of 
themselves,  no  good  wjy  C0me  of  it.  Look  rather  into  the 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  107 

causes  of  all  this  confusion,  and  apply  your  remedies  there. 
Send  for  the  best  and  wisest  men  from  all  parts  of  Chris- 
tendom, and  take  their  advice." 

Tell  a  crab  to  fly.  Tell  a  pope  to  be  reasonable.  You 
must  relieve  him  of  his  infallibility  if  you  want  him  to  act 
like,  a  sensible  man.  Adrian  could  undertake  no  reforms, 
and  still  besought  Erasmus  to  take  arms  for  him. 

Erasmus  determined  to  gratify  Adrian  with  least  danger 
to  himself  and  least  injury  to  Luther. 

"  I  remember  Uzzah,  and  am  afraid,"  he  said,  in  his  quiz- 
zing way ;  "  it  is  not  every  one  who  is  allowed  to  uphold 
the  ark.  Many  a  wise  man  has  attacked  Luther,  and  what 
has  been  effected  ?  The  pope  curses,  the  emperor  threat- 
ens ;  there  are  prisons,  confiscations,  fagots ;  and  all  is 
vain.  What  can  a  poor  pigmy  like  me  do  ? 


"  The  world  has  been  besotted  with  ceremonies.  Miser- 
able monks  have  ruled  all,  entangling  men's  consciences 
for  their  own  benefit.  Dogma  has  been  heaped  on  dogma. 
The  bishops  have  been  tyrants,  the  pope's  commissaries 
have  been  rascals.  Luther  has  been  an  instrument  of 
God's  displeasure,  like  Pharaoh  or  Nebuchadnezzar,  or  the 
Caesars,  and  I  shall  not  attack  him  on  such  grounds  as 
these." 

Erasmus  was  too  acute  to  defend  against  Luther  the 
weak  point  of  a  bad  cause.  He  would  not  declare  for  him, 
but  he  would  not  go  over  to  his  enemies.  Yet,  unless  he 
quarreled  with  Adrian,  he  could  not  be  absolutely  silent ; 
so  he  chose  a  subject  to  write  upon  on  which  all  schools 
of  theology,  Catholic  or  Protestant  —  all  philosophers,  all 
thinkers  of  whatever  kind  —  have  been  divided  from  the 
beginning  of  time :  fate  and  free-will,  predestination  and 
the  liberty  of  man,  —  a  problem  which  has  no  solution  ; 
which  may  be  argued  even  from  eternity  to  eternity. 

The   reason   of  the   selection   was   obvious.      Erasmus 


108  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

wished  to  please  the  Pope  and  not  exasperate  Luther.  Of 
course  he  pleased  neither,  and  offended  both. 

Luther,  who  did  not  comprehend  his  motive,  was  need- 
lessly angry.  Adrian  and  the  monks  were  openly  con- 
temptuous. Sick  of  them  and  their  quarrels,  he  grew 
weary  of  the  world,  and  began  to  wish  to  be  well  out  of  it. 

It  is  characteristic  of  Erasmus  that,  like  many  highly 
gifted  men,  but  unlike  all  theologians,  he  expressed  a  hope 
for  sudden  death,  and  declared  it  to  be  one  of  the  greatest 
blessings  which  a  human  creature  can  receive. 

Do  not  suppose  that  he  broke  down  or  showed  the  white 
feather  to  fortune's  buffets.  Through  all  storms  he  stuck 
bravely  to  his  own  proper  work ;  editing  classics,  editing 
the  Fathers,  writing  paraphrases,  —  still  doing  for  Europe 
what  no  other  man  could  have  done. 

The  Dominicans  hunted  him  away  from  Louvaine, 
There  was  no  living  for  him  in  Germany  for  the  Protes- 
tants. He  suffered  dreadfully  from  the  stone,  too,  and  in 
all  ways  had  a  cruel  time  of  it.  Yet  he  continued,  for  all 
that,  to  make  life  endurable. 

He  moved  about  in  Switzerland  and  on  the  Upper  Rhine. 
The  lakes,  the  mountains,  the  waterfalls,  the  villas  on  the 
hill  slopes,  delighted  Erasmus  when  few  people  else  cared 
for  such  things.  He  was  particular  about  his  wine.  The 
vintage  of  Burgundy  was  as  new  blood  in  his  veins,  and 
quickened  his  pen  into  brightness  and  life. 

The  German  wines  he  liked  worse  —  for  this  point 
among  others,  which  is  curious  to  observe  in  those  days. 
The  great  capitalist  wine-growers,  anti-Reformers  all  of 
them,  were  people  without  conscience  and  humanity,  and 
adulterated  their  liquors.  Of  course  they  did.  They  be- 
lieved in  nothing  but  money,  and  this  was  the  way  to  make 
money. 

"  The  water  they  mix  with  the  wine,"  Erasmus  says,  "  is 
the  least  part  of  the  mischief.  They  put  in  lime,  and  alum, 
and  resin,  and  sulphur,  and  salt,  —  and  then  they  say  it  i? 
good  enough  for  heretics," 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  109 

Observe  the  practical  issue  of  religious  corruption. 
Show  me  a  people  where  trade  is  dishonest,  and  I  will 
show  you  a  people  where  religion  is  a  sham. 

"  We  hang  men  that  steal  money,"  Erasmus  exclaimed, 
writing  doubtless  with  the  remembrance  of  a  stomach-ache, 
"  These  wretches  steal  our  money  and  our  lives  too,  and 
get  off  scot  free." 

He  settled  at  last  at  Basle,  which  the  storm  had  not  yet 
reached,  and  tried  to  bury  himself  among  his  books.  The 
shrieks  of  the  conflict,  however,  still  troubled  his  ears. 
He  heard  his  own  name  still  cursed,  and  he  could  not  bear 
it  or  sit  quiet  under  it. 

His  correspondence  was  still  enormous.  The  high  pow- 
ers still  appealed  to  him  for  advice  and  help.  Of  open 
meddling  he  would  have  no  more  ;  he  did  not  care,  he  said, 
to  make  a  post  of  himself  for  every  dog  of  a  theologian  to 
defile.  Advice,  however,  he  continued  to  give  in  the  old 
style. 

"  Put  down  the  preachers  on  both  sides.  Fill  the  pul- 
pits with  men  who  will  kick  controversy  into  the  kennel, 
and  preach  piety  and  good  manners.  Teach  nothing  in 
the  schools  but  what  bears  upon  life  and  duty.  Punish 
those  who  break  the  peace,  and  punish  no  one  else ;  and 
when  the  new  opinions  have  taken  root,  allow  liberty  of 
conscience." 

Perfection  of  wisdom  ;  but  a  wisdom  which,  unfortu- 
nately, was  three  centuries  at  least  out  of  date,  which  even 
now  we  have  not  grown  big  enough  to  profit  by.  The 
Catholic  princes  and  bishops  were  at  work  with  fire  and 
fagot.  The  Protestants  were  pulling  down  monasteries, 
and  turning  the  monks  and  nuns  out  into  the  world.  The 
Catholics  declared  that  Erasmus  was  as  much  to  blame  as 
Luther.  The  Protestants  held  him  responsible  for  the  per 
secutions,  and  insisted,  not  without  reason,  that  if  Erasmus 
had  been  true  to  his  conscience,  the  whole  Catholic  world 
must  have  accepted  the  Reformation. 


110  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

He  suffered  bitterly  under  these  attacks  upon  him.  He 
loved  quiet,  and  his  ears  were  deafened  with  clamor.  He 
liked  popularity,  and  he  was  the  best-abused  person  in 
Europe.  Others  who  suffered  in  the  same  way  he  could 
advise  to  leave  the  black-coated  jackdaws  to  their  noise  ; 
but  he  could  not  follow  his  own  counsel.  When  the  curs 
were  at  his  heels,  he  could  not  restrain  himself  from  lash- 
ing out  at  them  ;  and,  from  his  retreat  at  Basle,  his  sar- 
casms flashed  out  like  jagged  points  of  lightning. 

Describing  an  emeute,  and  the  burning  of  an  image  of 
a  saint,  "  They  insulted  the  poor  image  so,"  he  said,  "  it  is 
a  marvel  there  was  no  miracle.  The  saint  worked  so  many 
in  the  good  old  times." 

When  Luther  married  an  escaped  nun,  the  Catholics 
exclaimed  that  Antichrist  would  be  born  from  such  an  in- 
cestuous intercourse.  "  Nay,"  Erasmus  said,  "  if  monk 
and  nun  produce  Antichrist,  there  must  have  been  legions 
of  Antichrists  these  many  years." 

More  than  once  he  was  tempted  to  go  over  openly  to 
Luther  —  not  from  a  noble  motive,  but,  as  he  confessed, 
"  to  make  those  furies  feel  the  difference  between  him  and 
them." 

He  was  past  sixty,  with  broken  health  and  failing 
strength.  He  thought  of  going  back  to  England,  but 
England  had  by  this  time  caught  fire,  and  Basle  had 
caught  fire.  There  was  no  peace  on  earth. 

'•'  The  horse  has  his  heels,"  he  said,  when  advised  to  be 
quiet,  "  the  dog  his  teeth,  the  hedgehog  his  spines,  the  bee 
his  sting.  I  myself  have  my  tongue  and  my  pen,  and  why 
should  I  not  use  them  ?  " 

Yet  to  use  them  to  any  purpose  now,  he  must  take  a 
side,  and,  sorely  tempted  as  he  was,  he  could  not. 

With  the  negative  part  of  the  Protestant  creed  he  sym- 
pathized heartily ;  but  he  did  not  understand  Luther's  doc- 
trine of  faith,  because  he  had  none  of  his  own,  and  he  dis- 
liked it  as  a  new  dosrma. 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  Ill 

He  regarded  Luther's  movement  as  an  outburst  of  com- 
monplace revolution,  caused  by  the  folly  and  wickedness 
of  the  authorities,  but  with  no  organizing  vitality  in  itself ; 
and  his  chief  distress,  as  we  gather  from  his  later  letters, 
was  at  his  own  treatment.  He  had  done  his  best  for  both 
sides.  He  had  failed,  and  was  abused  by  every  body. 

Thus  passed  away  the  last  years  of  one  of  the  most 
gifted  men  that  Europe  has  ever  seen.  I  have  quoted 
many  of  his  letters.  I  will  add  one  more  passage,  written 
near  the  end  of  his  life,  very  touching  and  pathetic :  — 

"  Hercules,"  he  said,  "  could  not  fight  two  monsters  at 
once  ;  while  I,  poor  wretch,  have  lions,  cerberuses,  cancers, 
scorpions  every  day  at  my  sword's  point ;  not  to  mention 
smaller  vermin  —  rats,  mosquitoes,  bugs,  and  fleas.  My 
troops  of  friends  are  turned  to  enemies.  At  dinner-tables 
or  social  gatherings,  in  churches  and  kings'  courts,  in  pub- 
lic carriage  or  public  flyboat,  scandal  pursues  me,  and  cal- 
umny defiles  my  name.  Every  goose  now  hisses  at  Eras- 
mus; and  it  is  worse  than  being  stoned,  once  for  all,  like 
Stephen,  or  shot  with  arrows  like  Sebastian. 

"They  attack  me  now  even  for  my  Latin  style,  and 
spatter  me  with  epigrams.  Fame  I  would  have  parted 
with;  but  to  be  the  sport  of  blackguards  —  to  be  pelted 
with  potsherds  and  dirt  and  ordure  —  is  not  this  worse 
than  death  ? 

"  There  is  no  rest  for  me  in  my  age,  unless  I  join 
Luther ;  and  I  cannot,  for  I  cannot  accept  his  doctrines. 
Sometimes  I  am  stung  with  a  desire  to  avenge  my  wrongs ; 
but  I  say  to  myself,  '  Will  you,  to  gratify  your  spleen,  raise 
your  hand  against  your  mother  the  Church,  who  begot  you 
at  the  font  and  led  you  with  the  word  of  God  ? '  I  can- 
not do  it.  Yet  I  understand  now  how  Arius,  and  Tertul- 
lian,  and  Wickliff  were  driven  into  schism.  The  theolo- 
gians say  I  am  their  enemy.  "Why  ?  Because  I  bade 
monks  remember  their  vows ;  because  I  told  parsons  to 
leave  their  wranglings  and  read  the  Bible ;  because  I  told 


112  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

popes  and  cardinals  to  look  at  the  Apostles  and  make 
themselves  more  like  to  them*  If  this  is  to  be  their 
enemy,  then  indeed  I  have  injured  them." 

This  was  almost  the  last  The  stone,  advancing  years, 
and  incessant  toil  had  worn  him  to  a  shred.  The  clouds 
grew  blacker.  News  came  from  England  that  his  dear 
friends  More  and  Fisher  had  died  upon  the  scaffold.  He 
had  long  ceased  to  care  for  life  ;  and  death,  almost  as 
sudden  as  he  had  longed  for,  gave  him  peace  at  last. 

So  ended  Desiderius  Erasmus,  the  world's  idol  for  so 
many  years;  and  dying  heaped  with  undeserved  but  too 
intelligible  anathemas,  seeing  all  that  he  had  labored  for 
swept  away  by  the  whirlwind. 

Do  not  let  me  lead  you  to  undervalue  him.  Without 
Erasmus,  Luther  would  have  been  impossible  ;  and  Eras- 
mus really  succeeded  —  so  much  of  him  as  deserved  to 
succeed  —  in  Luther's  victory* 

He  was  brilliantly  gifted.  His  industry  never  tired. 
His  intellect  was  true  to  itself;  and  no  worldly  motives 
ever  tempted  him  into  insincerity.  He  was  even  far 
braver  than  he  professed  to  be.  Had  he  been  brought  to 
the  trial,  he  would  have  borne  it  better  than  many  a  man 
who  boasted  louder  of  his  courage. 

And  yet,  in  his  special  scheme  for  remodeling  the  mind 
of  Europe,  he  failed  hopelessly  —  almost  absurdly.  He 
believed  himself,  that  his  work  was  spoilt  by  the  Reforma- 
tion ;  but,  in  fact,  under  no  conditions  could  any  more 
have  come  of  it. 

Literature  and  cultivation  will  feed  life  when  life  exists 
already ;  and  toleration  and  latitudinarianism  are  well 
enough  when  mind  and  conscience  are  awake  and  ener- 
getic of  themselves. 

When  there  is  no  spiritual  life  at  all ;  when  men  live 
only  for  themselves  and  for  sensual  pleasure  ;  when  relig- 
ion is  superstition,  and  conscience  a  name,  and  God  an 
idol  half-feared  and  half-despised  —  then,  for  the  restora- 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

tion  of  the  higher  nature  in  man,  qualities  are  needed  dif- 
ferent in  kind  from  any  which  Erasmus  possessed. 

And  now  to  go  back  to 'Luther.  I  cannot  tell  you  all 
that  Luther  did  ;  it  would  be  to  tell  you  all  the  story  of  the 
German  Reformation.  I  want  you  rather  to  consider  the 
kind  of  man  that  Luther  was,  and  to  see  in  his  character 
how  he  came  to  achieve  what  he  did. 

You  remember  that  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  after  the 
Diet  of  Worms,  sent  him  to  the  Castle  of  Wartzburg,  to 
prevent  him  from  being  murdered  or  kidnapped.  He  re- 
mained there  many  months ;  and  during  that  time  the  old 
ecclesiastical  institutions  of  Germany  were  burning  like 
a  North  American  forest.  The  monasteries  were  broken 
up;  the  estates  were  appropriated  by  the  nobles;  the 
monks  were  sent  wandering  into  the  world.  The  bishops 
looked  helplessly  on  while  their  ancient  spiritual  dominion 
was  torn  to  pieces  and  trodden  under  foot.  The  Elector 
of  Saxony,  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  and  several  more  of 
the  princes,  declared  for  the  Reformation.  The  Protest- 
ants had  a  majority  in  the  Diet,  and  controlled  the  force 
of  the  empire.  Charles  the  Fifth,  busy  with  his  French 
wars,  and  in  want  of  money,  dared  not  press  questions  to 
a  crisis  which  he  had  not  power  to  cope  with  ;  and  he  was 
obliged  for  a  time  to  recognize  what  he  could  not  prevent. 
You  would  have  thought  Luther  would  have  been  well 
pleased  to  see  the  seed  which  he  had  sown  bear  fruit  so 
rapidly ;  yet  it  was  exactly  while  all  this  was  going  on  that 
he  experienced  those  temptations  of  the  devil  of  which  he 
has  left  so  wonderful  an  account. 

We  shall  have  our  own  opinions  on  the  nature  of  these 
apparitions.  But  Luther,  it  is  quite  certain,  believed  that 
Satan  himself  attacked  him  in  person.  Satan,  he  tells  us, 
came  often  to  him,  and  said,  "  See  what  you  have  done. 
Behold  this  ancient  Church,  this  mother  of  saints,  polluted 
and  defiled  by  brutal  violence.  And  it  is  you  —  you,  a  poor 
ignorant  monk,  that  have  set  the  people  on  to  their  unholy 
8 


114  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

work.  Are  you  so  much  wiser  than  the  saints  who  approved 
the  things  which  you  have  denounced  ?  Popes,  bishops, 
clergy,  kings,  emperors,  are  none  of  these  —  are  not  all 
these  together  —  wiser  than  Martin  Luther  the  monk  ?  " 

The  devil,  he  says,  caused  him  great  agony  by  these 
suggestions.  He  fell  into  deep  fits  of  doubt  and  humilia- 
tion and  despondency.  And  wherever  these  thoughts  came 
from,  we  can  only  say  that  they  were  very  natural  thoughts 

—  natural  and  right.     He  called  them  temptations ;   yet 
these  were  temptations  which  would  not  have  occurred  to 
any  but  a  high-minded  man. 

He  had,  however,  done  only  what  duty  had  forced  him 
to  do.  His  business  was  to  trust  to  God,  who  had  begun 
the  work  and  knew  what  He  meant  to  make  of  it.  His 
doubts  and  misgivings,  therefore,  he  ascribed  to  Satan,  and 
his  enormous  imaginative  vigor  gave  body  to  the  voice 
which  was  speaking  in  him. 

He  tells  many  humorous  stories  —  not  always  producible 

—  of  the  means  with  which  he  encountered  his  offensive 
visitor. 

"  The  devil,"  he  says,  "  is  very  proud,  and  what  he  least 
likes  is  to  be  laughed  at."  One  night  he  was  disturbed  by 
something  rattling  in  his  room  ;  the  modern  unbeliever  will 
suppose  it  was  a  mouse.  He  got  up,  lit  a  candle,  searched 
the  apartment  through,  and  could  find  nothing  —  the  Evil 
One  was  indisputably  there. 

"  Oh !  "  he  said,  "  it  is  you,  is  it  ?  "  He  returned  to  bed, 
and  went  to  sleep. 

Think  as  you  please  about  the  cause  of  the  noise,  but 
remember  that  Luther  had  not  the  least  doubt  that  he  was 
alone  in  the  room  with  the  actual  devil,  who,  if  he  could 
not  overcome  his  soul,  could  at  least  twist  his  neck  in  a 
moment  —  and  then  think  what  courage  there  must  have 
been  in  a  man  who  could  deliberately  sleep  in  such  a 


presence 


During  his  retirement   he  translated   the  Bible.     The 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  115 

confusion  at  last  became  so  desperate  that  he  could  to 
longer  be  spared  ;  and,  believing  that  he  was  certain  to  be 
destroyed,  he  left  "Wartzburg  and  returned  to  Wittenberg. 
Death  was  always  before  him  as  supremely  imminent.  He 
used  to  say  that  it  would  be  a  great  disgrace  to  the  Pope  if 
he  died  in  his  bed.  He  was  wanted  once  at  Leipsic.  His 
friends  said  if  he  went  there  Duke  George  would  kill 
him. 

"  Duke  George  ! "  he  said ;  "  I  would  go  to  Leipsic  if  it 
rained  Duke  Georges  for  nine  days  !  " 

No  such  cataclysm  of  Duke  Georges  happily  took  place. 
The  single  one  there  was  would  have  gladly  been  mischiev- 
ous if  he  could ;  but  Luther  outlived  him  —  lived  for  twenty- 
four  years  after  this,  in  continued  toil,  reshaping  the  Ger- 
man Church,  and  giving  form  to  its  new  doctrine. 

Sacerdotalism,  properly  so  called,  was  utterly  abolished. 
The  corruptions  of  the  Church  had  all  grown  out  of  one 
root,  the  notion  that  the  Christian  priesthood  possesses 
mystical  power,  conferred  through  episcopal  ordination. 

Religion,  as  Luther  conceived  it,  did  not  consist  in  cer- 
tain things  done  to  and  for  a  man  by  a  so-called  priest.  It 
was  the  devotion  of  each  individual  soul  to  the  service  of 
God.  Masses  were  nothing,  and  absolution  was  nothing ; 
and  a  clergyman  differed  only  from  a  layman  in  being  set 
apart  for  the  especial  duties  of  teaching  and  preaching. 

I  am  not  concerned  to  defend  Luther's  view  in  this  mat- 
ter. It  is  a  matter  of  fact  only,  that  in  getting  rid  of 
episcopal  ordination,  he  dried  up  the  fountain  from  which 
the  mechanical  and  idolatrous  conceptions  of  religion  had 
sprung ;  and,  in  consequence,  the  religious  life  of  Germany 
has  expanded  with  the  progress  of  knowledge,  while  priest- 
hoods everywhere  cling  to  the  formulas  of  the  past,  in  which 
they  live,  and  move,  and  have  their  being. 

Enough  of  this. 

The  peculiar  doctrine  which  has  passed  into  Europe 
under  Luther's  name,  is  known  as  Justification  by  Faith. 


116  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

Bandied  about  as  a  watchword  of  party,  it  has  by  this  time 
hardened  into  a  formula,  and  has  become  barren  as  the 
soil  of  a  trodden  footpath.  As  originally  proclaimed  by 
Luther,  it  contained  the  deepest  of  moral  truths.  It  ex- 
pressed what  was,  and  is,  and  must  be,  in  one  language  or 
another,  to  the  end  of  time,  the  conviction  of  every  gen- 
erous-minded man. 

The  service  of  God,  as  Luther  learnt  it  from  the  monks, 
was  a  thing  of  desert  and  reward.  So  many  good  works 
done,  so  much  to  the  right  page  in  the  great  book ;  where 
the  stock  proved  insufficient,  there  was  the  reserve  fund  of 
the  merits  of  the  saints,  which  the  Church  dispensed  for 
money  to  those  who  needed. 

"  Merit !  "  Luther  thought.  "  What  merit  can  there  be 
in  such  a  poor  caitiff  as  man  ?  The  better  a  man  is,  the 
more  clearly  he  sees  how  little  he  is  good  for,  the  greater 
mockery  it  seems  to  attribute  to  him  the  notion  of  having 
deserved  reward." 

"  Miserable  creatures  that  we  are  !  "  he  said ;  "  we  earn 
our  bread  in  sin.  Till  we  are  seven  years  old,  we  do  nothing 
but  eat  and  drink  and  sleep  and  play ;  from  seven  to  twenty- 
one  we  study  four  hours  a  day,  the  rest  of  it  we  run  about 
and  amuse  ourselves ;  then  we  work  till  fifty,  and  then  we 
grow  again  to  be  children.  We  sleep  half  our  lives ;  we 
give  God  a  tenth  of  our  time  ;  and  yet  we  think  that  with 
our  good  works  we  can  merit  heaven.  What  have  I  been 
doing  to-day  ?  I  have  talked  for  two  hours  ;  I  have  been 
at  meals  three  hours ;  I  have  been  idle  four  hours !  Ah, 
enter  not  into  judgment  with  thy  servant.  O  Lord ! " 

A  perpetual  struggle.  Forever  to  be  falling,  yet  to  rise 
again  and  stumble  forward  with  eyes  turned  to  Heaven  — 
this  was  the  best  which  would  ever  come  of  man.  It  was 
accepted  in  its  imperfection  by  the  infinite  grace  of  God, 
who  pities  mortal  weakness,  and  accepts  the  intention  for 
the  deed ;  who,  when  there  is  a  sincere  desire  to  serve 
Him,  overlooks  the  short-comings  of  infirmity. 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  117 

Do  you  say  such  teaching  leads  to  disregard  of  duty  ? 
All  doctrines,  when  petrified  into  formulas,  lead  to  that. 
But,  as  Luther  said,  "  Where  real  faith  is,  a  good  life  fol- 
lows, as  light  follows  the  sun  ;  faint  and  clouded,  yet  ever 
struggling  to  break  through  the  mist  which  envelopes  it, 
and  welcoming  the  roughest  discipline  which  tends  to  clear 
and  raise  it. 

"  The  barley,"  he  says,  in  a  homely  but  effective  image, 
"  the  barley  which  we  brew,  the  flax  of  which  we  weave 
our  garments,  must  be  bruised  and  torn  ere  they  come  to 
the  use  for  which  they  are  grown.  So  must  Christians 
suffer.  The  natural  creature  must  be  combed  and  threshed. 
The  old  Adam  must  die,  for  the  higher  life  to  begin.  If 
man  is  to  rise  to  nobleness,  he  must  first  be  slain." 

In  modern  language,  the  poet  Goethe  tells  us  the  same 
truth.  "  The  natural  man,"  he  says,  "  is  like  the  ore  out  of 
the  iron  mine.  It  is  smelted  in  the  furnace  ;  it  is  forged 
into  bars  upon  the  anvil.  A  new  nature  is  at  last  forced 
upon  it,  and  it  is  made  steel." 

It  was  this  doctrine  —  it  was  this  truth  rather  (the  word 
doctrine  reminds  one  of  quack  medicines)  —  which,  quick- 
ening in  Luther's  mind,  gave  Europe  its  new  life.  It  was 
the  flame  which,  beginning  with  a  small  spark,  kindled  the 
hearth-fires  in  every  German  household. 

Luther's  own  life  was  a  model  of  quiet  simplicity.  He 
remained  poor.  He  might  have  had  money  if  he  had 
wished  ;  but  he  chose  rather,  amidst  his  enormous  labor,  to 
work  at  a  turning-lathe  for  his  livelihood. 

He  was  sociable,  cheerful,  fond  of  innocent  amusements, 
and  delighted  to  encourage  them.  His  table-talk,  collected 
by  his  friends,  makes  one  of  the  most  brilliant  books  in  the 
world.  He  had  no  monkish  theories  about  the  necessity 
of  abstinence  ;  but  he  was  temperate  from  habit  and  prin- 
ciple. A  salt  herring  and  a  hunch  of  bread  was  his  ordi- 
nary meal ;  and  he  was  once  four  days  without  food  of  any 
sort,  having  emptied  his  larder  among  the  poor. 


118  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

All  kinds  of  people  thrust  themselves  on  Luther  for  help. 
Flights  of  nuns  from  the  dissolved  convents  came  to  him 
to  provide  for  them  —  naked,  shivering  creatures,  with 
scarce  a  rag  to  cover  them.  Eight  florins  were  wanted 
once  to  provide  clothes  for  some  of  them.  "  Eight  florins ! " 
he  said  ;  "  and  where  am  I  to  get  eight  florins  ?  "  Great 
people  had  made  him  presents  of  plate  ;  it  all  went  to 
market,  to  be  turned  into  clothes  and  food  for  the  wretched. 

Melancthon  says  that,  unless  provoked,  he  was  usually 
very  gentle  and  tolerant.  He  recognized,  and  was  almost 
alone  in  recognizing,  the  necessity  of  granting  liberty  of 
conscience.  No  one  hated  Popery  more  than  he  did,  yet 
he  said,  — 

"  The  Papists  must  bear  with  us,  and  we  with  them.  If 
they  will  not  follow  us,  we  have  no  right  to  force  them. 
"Wherever  they  can,  they  will  hang,  burn,  behead,  and 
strangle  us.  I  shall  be  persecuted  as  long  as  I  live,  and 
most  likely  killed.  But  it  must  come  to  this  at  last  —  every 
man  must  be  allowed  to  believe  according  to  his  conscience, 
and  answer  for  his  belief  to  his  Maker." 

Erasmus  said  of  Luther  that  there  were  two  natures  in 
him  :  sometimes  he  wrote  like  an  apostle,  sometimes  like  a 
raving  ribald. 

Doubtless,  Luther  could  be  impolite  on  occasions.  When 
he  was  angry,  invectives  rushed  from  him  like  boulder  rocks 
down  a  mountain  torrent  in  flood.  "We  need  not  admire  all 
that ;  in  quiet  times  it  is  hard  to  understand  it. 

Here,  for  instance,  is  a  specimen.  Our  Henry  the 
Eighth,  who  began  life  as  a  highly  orthodox  sovereign, 
broke  a  lance  with  Luther  for  the  Papacy. 

Luther  did  not  credit  Henry  with  a  composition  which 
was  probably  his  own  after  all.  He  thought  the  king  was 
put  forward  by  some  of  the  English  bishops  ;  "  Thomists," 
he  calls  them,  as  men  who  looked  for  the  beginning  and 
end  of  wisdom  to  the  writings  of  Thomas  Aquinas. 

"  Courage,"  he  exclaimed  to  them,  "  swine  that  you  are  ! 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  119 

burn  me  then,  if  you  can  and  dare.  Here  I  am  ;  do  your 
worst  upon  me.  Scatter  my  ashes  to  all  the  winds ;  spread 
them  through  all  seas.  My  spirit  shall  pursue  you  still. 
Living,  I  am  the  foe  of  the  Papacy ;  and  dead,  I  will  be  its 
foe  twice  over.  Hogs  of  Thomists !  Luther  shall  be  the 
bear  in  your  way,  the  lion  in  your  path.  Go  where  you 
will,  Luther  shall  cross  you.  Luther  shall  leave  you  neither 
peace  nor  rest  till  he  has  crushed  in  your  brows  of  brass 
and  dashed  out  your  iron  brains." 

Strong  expressions ;  but  the  times  were  not  gentle. 
The  prelates  whom  he  supposed  himself  to  be  addressing 
were  the  men  who  filled  our  Smithfield  with  the  reek  of 
burning  human  flesh. 

Men  of  Luther's  stature  are  like  the  violent  forces  of 
Nature  herself,  —  terrible  when  roused ;  and  in  repose, 
majestic  and  beautiful.  Of  vanity  he  had  not  a  trace. 
"  Do  not  call  yourselves  Lutherans,"  he  said  ;  "  call  your- 
selves Christians.  "Who  and  what  is  Luther  ?  Has  Luther 
been  crucified  for  the  world  ?  " 

I  mentioned  his  love  of  music.  His  songs  and  hymns 
were  the  expression  of  the  very  inmost  heart  of  the  Ger- 
man people.  "  Music  "  he  called  "  the  grandest  and  sweet- 
est gift  of  God  to  man."  "  Satan  hates  music,"  he  said ; 
"  he  knows  how  it  drives  the  evil  spirit  out  of  us." 

He  was  extremely  interested  in  all  natural  things.  Be- 
fore the  science  of  botany  was  dreamt  of,  Luther  had  di- 
vined the  principle  of  vegetable  life.  "  The  principle  of 
marriage  runs  through  a-11  creation,"  he  said  ;  "  and  flowers 
as  well  as  animals  are  male  and  female." 

A  garden  called  out  bursts  of  eloquence  from  him ;  beau- 
tiful sometimes  as  a  finished  piece  of  poetry. 

One  April  day  as  he  was  watching  the  swelling  buds,  he 
exclaimed,  — 

"  Praise  be  to  God  the  Creator,  who  out  of  a  dead  world 
makes  all  alive  again.  See  those  shoots,  how  they  burgeon 
and  swell !  Image  of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  !  Winter 


120  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Lutlier. 

is  death ;  summer  is  the  resurrection.  Between  them  lie 
spring  and  autumn,  as  the  period  of  uncertainty  and  change. 
The  proverb  says,  — 

" '  Trust  not  a  day 
Ere  birth  of  May.' 

Let  us  pray  our  Father  in  heaven  to  give  us  this  day  our 
daily  bread." 

"  We  are  in  the  dawn  of  a  new  era,"  he  said  another 
time  ;  "  we  are  beginning  to  think  something  of  the  natural 
world  which  was  ruined  in  Adam's  fall.  We  are  learning 
to  see  all  round  us  the  greatness  and  glory  of  the  Creator. 
We  can  see  the  Almighty  hand  —  the  infinite  goodness  — 
in  the  humblest  flower.  We  praise  Him,  we  thank  Him, 
we  glorify  Him  ;  we  recognize  in  creation  the  power  of  His 
word.  He  spoke  and  it  was  there.  The  stone  of  the  peach 
is  hard  ;  but  the  soft  kernel  swells  and  bursts  it  when  the 
time  comes.  An  egg  —  what  a  thing  is  that !  If  an  egg 
had  never  been  seen  in  Europe,  and  a  traveller  had 
brought  one  from  Calcutta,  how  would  all  the  world  have 
wondered ! " 

And  again :  — 

"  If  a  man  could  make  a  single  rose,  we  should  give  him 
an  empire ;  yet  roses,  and  flowers  no  less  beautiful,  are 
scattered  in  profusion  over  the  world,  and  no  one  regards 
them." 

There  are  infinite  other  things  which  I  should  like  to  tell 
you  about  Luther,  but  time  wears  on.  I  must  confine  what 
more  I  have  to  say  to  a  single  matter,  for  which  more  than 
any  other  he  has  been  blamed ;  I  mean  his  marriage. 

He  himself,  a  monk  and  a  priest,  had  taken  a  vow  of  cel- 
ibacy. The  person  whom  he  married  had  been  a  nun,  and 
as  such  had  taken  a  vow  of  celibacy  also. 

The  marriage  was  unquestionably  no  affair  of  passion. 
Luther  had  come  to  middle  age  when  it  was  brought  about, 
when  temptations  of  that  kind  lose  their  power ;  and  among 
the  many  accusations  which  have  been  brought  against  his 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  121 

early  life,  no  one  has  ventured  to  charge  him  with  inconti- 
nence. His  taking  a  wife  was  a  grave  act  deliberately 
performed ;  and  it  was  either  meant  as  a  public  insult  to 
established  ecclesiastical  usage,  or  else  he  considered  that 
the  circumstances  of  the  time  required  it  of  him. 

Let  us  see  what  those  circumstances  were.  The  enforce- 
ment of  celibacy  on  the  clergy  was,  in  Luther's  opinion, 
both  iniquitous  in  itself  and  productive  of  enormous  im- 
morality. The  impurity  of  the  religious  orders  had  been 
the  jest  of  satirists  for  a  hundred,  years.  It  had  been  the 
distress  and  perplexity  of  pious  and  serious  persons.  Lu- 
ther himself  was  impressed  with  profound  pity  for  the  poor 
men,  who  were  cut  off  from  the  natural  companionship 
which  Nature  had  provided  for  them ;  who  were  thus  ex- 
posed to  temptations  which  they  ought  not  to  have  been 
called  upon  to  resist. 

The  dissolution  of  the  religious  houses  had  enormously 
complicated  the  problem.  Germany  was  covered  with 
friendless  and  homeless  men  and  women  adrift  upon  the 
world.  They  came  to  Luther  to  tell  them  what  to  do ;  and 
advice  was  of  little  service  without  example. 

The  world  had  grown  accustomed  to  immorality  in  such 
persons.  They  might  have  lived  together  in  concubinage, 
and  no  one  would  have  thought  much  about  it.  Their 
marriage  was  regarded  with  a  superstitious  terror  as  a  kind 
of  incest. 

Luther,  on  the  other  hand,  regarded  marriage  as  the 
natural  and  healthy  state  in  which  clergy  as  well  as  laity 
were  intended  to  live.  Immorality  was  hateful  to  him  as  a 
degradation  of  a  sacrament,  —  impious,  loathsome,  and  dis- 
honored. Marriage  was  the  condition  in  which  humanity 
was  at  once  purest,  best,  and  happiest. 

For  himself,  he  had  become  inured  to  a  single  life.  He 
had  borne  the  injustice  of  his  lot  when  the  burden  had 
been  really  heavy.  But  time  and  custom  had  lightened 
the  load  ;  and  had  there  been  nothing  at  issue  but  his  own 


122  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

personal  happiness,  he  would  not  have  given  further  occa« 
sion  to  the  malice  of  his  enemies. 

But  tens  of  thousands  of  poor  creatures  were  looking  to 
him  to  guide  them  ;  guide  them  by  precept,  or  guide  them 
by  example.  He  had  satisfied  himself  that  the  vow  of  cel- 
ibacy had  been  unlawfully  imposed  both  on  him  and  them  ; 
that,  as  he  would  put  it,  it  had  been  a  snare  devised  by  the 
devil.  He  saw  that  all  eyes  were  fixed  on  him ;  that  it 
was  no  use  to  tell  others  that  they  might  marry,  unless  he 
himself  led  the  way,  and  married  first.  And  it  was  char- 
acteristic of  him  that,  having  resolved  to  do  the  thing,  he 
did  it  in  the  way  most  likely  to  show  the  world  his  full 
thought  upon  the  matter. 

That  this  was  his  motive,  there  is  no  kind  of  doubt 
whatever. 

"  We  may  be  able  to  live  unmarried,"  he  said  ;  "  but  in 
these  days  we  must  protest  in  deed  as  well  as  word  against 
the  doctrine  of  celibacy.  It  is  an  invention  of  Satan.  Be- 
fore I  took  my  wife,  I  had  made  up  my  mind  that  I  must 
marry  some  one ;  and  had  I  been  overtaken  by  illness,  I 
should  have  betrothed  myself  to  some  pious  maiden." 

He  asked  nobody's  advice.  Had  he  let  his  intention  be 
suspected,  the  moderate,  respectable  people,  —  the  people 
who  thought  like  Erasmus,  —  those  who  wished  well  to 
what  was  good,  but  wished  also  to  stand  well  with  the 
world's  opinion,  —  such  persons  as  these  would  have  over- 
whelmed him  with  remonstrances.  "When  you  marry,"  he 
said  to  a  friend  in  a  similar  situation,  "  be  quiet  about  it,  or 
mountains  will  rise  between  you  and  your  wishes.  If  I  had 
not  been  swift  and  secret,  I  should  have  had  the  whole 
world  in  my  way." 

Catherine  Bora,  the  lady  whom  he  chose  for  his  wife, 
was  a  nun  of  good  family,  left  homeless  and  shelterless  by 
the  breaking-up  of  her  convent.  She  was  an  ordinary,  un- 
imaginative body,  plain  in  person  and  plain  in  mind,  in  no 
sense  whatever  a  heroine  of  romance,  but  a  decent,  sensi- 
ble, commonplace  Plans  Fran. 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  123 

The  age  of  romance  was  over  with  both  of  them ;  yet 
for  all  that,  never  marriage  brought  a  plainer  blessing  witi 
it.  They  began  with  respect,  and  ended  with  steady  affec 
tion. 

The  happiest  life  on  earth,  Luther  used  to  say,  is  with  a 
pious,  good  wife ;  in  peace  and  quiet,  contented  with  a 
little,  and  giving  God  thanks. 

He  spoke  from  his  own  experience.  His  Katie,  as  he 
called  her,  was  not  clever,  and  he  had  humorous  stories  to 
tell  of  the  beginning  of  their  adventures  together. 

"  The  first  year  of  married  life  is  an  odd  business,"  he 
says.  "  At  meals,  where  you  used  to  be  alone,  you  arc 
yourself  and  somebody  else.  When  you  wake  irr  the  moru 
ing,  there  are  a  pair  of  tails  close  to  you  on  the  pillov, 
My  Katie  used  to  sit  with  me  when  I  was  at  work.  Sb., 
thought  she  ought  not  to  be  silent.  She  did  not  know 
what  to  say,  so  she  would  ask  me,  — 

"  '  Herr  Doctor,  is  not  the  master  of  the  ceremonies  in 
Prussia  the  brother  of  the  Margrave  ?  ' ' 

She  was  an  odd  woman. 

"  Doctor,"  she  said  to  him  one  day,  "  how  is  it  that  under 
Popery  we  prayed  so  often  and  so  earnestly,  and  now  our 
prayers  are  cold  and  seldom  ?  " 

Katie  might  have  spoken  for  herself.  Luther,  to  the 
last,  spent  hours  of  every  day  in  prayer.  He  advised  her 
to  read  the  Bible  a  little  more.  She  said  she  had  read 
enough  of  it,  and  knew  half  of  it  by  heart.  "  Ah  ! "  he 
said,  "here  begins  weariness  of  the  word  of  God.  One 
clay  new  lights  will  rise  up,  and  the  Scriptures  will  be  de- 
spised and  be  flung  away  into  the  corner." 

His  relations  with  his  children  were  singularly  beautiful. 
The  recollection  of  his  own  boyhood  made  him  especially 
gentle  with  them,  and  their  fancies  and  imaginations  de- 
lighted him. 

Children,  to  him,  were  images  of  unfallen  nature.  "  Chil- 
dren/' he  said,  "  imagine  heaven  a  place  where  rivers  run 


124  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

with  cream,  and  trees  are  hung  with  cakes  and  plums.  Do 
not  blame  them.  They  are  but  showing  their  simple,  nat- 
ural, unquestioning,  all-believing  faith." 

One  day,  after  dinner,  when  the  fruit  was  on  the  table, 
the  children  were  watching  it  with  longing  eyes.  "  That 
is  the  way,"  he  said,  "  in  which  we  grown  Christians  ought 
to  look  for  the  Judgment  Day.'' 

His  daughter  Magdalen  died  when  she  was  fourteen. 
He  speaks  of  his  loss  with  the  unaffected  simplicity  of  nat- 
ural grief,  yet  with  the  faith  of  a  man  who  had  not  the 
slightest  doubt  into  whose  hands  his  treasure  was  passing. 
Perfect  nature  and  perfect  piety.  Neither  one  emotion  nor 
the  other  disguised  or  suppressed. 

You  will  have  gathered  something,  I  hope,  from  these 
faint  sketches,  of  what  Luther  was ;  you  will  be  able  to  see 
how  far  he  deserves  to  be  called,  by  our  modern  new  lights, 
a  Philistine  or  a  heretic.  We  will  now  return  to  the  sub- 
ject with  which  we  began,  and  resume,  in  a  general  con- 
clusion, the  argument  of  these  Lectures. 

In  part,  but  not  wholly,  it  can  be  done  in  Luther's  words. 

One  regrets  that  Luther  did  not  know  Erasmus  better, 
or,  knowing  him,  should  not  have  treated  him  with  more 
forbearance. 

Erasmus  spoke  of  him  for  the  most  part  with  kindness. 
He  interceded  for  him,  defended  him,  and  only  with  the 
utmost  reluctance  was  driven  into  controversy  with  him. 

Luther,  on  the  other  hand,  saw  in  Erasmus  a  man  who 
was  false  to  his  convictions ;  who  played  with  truth ;  who, 
in  his  cold,  sarcastic  skepticism,  believed  in  nothing  — 
scarcely  even  in  God.  He  was  unaware  of  own  his  obliga- 
tions to  him,  for  Erasmus  was  not  a  person  who  would 
trumpet  out  his  own  good  deeds. 

Thus  Luther  says :  — 

"  All  you  who  honor  Christ,  I  pray  you  hate  Erasmus. 
He  is  a  scoffer  and  a  mocker.  He  speaks  in  riddles  ;  and 
jests  at  Popery  and  Gospel,  and  Christ  and  God,  with  his 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  125 

uncertain  speeches.  lie  might  have  served  the  Gospel  if 
he  would,  but,  like  Judas,  he  has  betrayed  the  Son  of  Man 
with  a  kiss.  He  is  not  with  us,  and  he  is  not  with  our  foes ; 
and  I  say  with  Joshua,  Choose  whom  ye  will  serve.  He 
thinks  we  should  trim  to  the  times,  and  hang  our  cloaks  to 
the  wind.  He  is  himself  his  own  first  object ;  and  as  he 
lived,  he  died. 

"  I  take  Erasmus  to  be  the  worst  enemy  that  Christ  has 
had  for  a  thousand  years.  Intellect  does  not  understand 
religion,  and,  when  it  comes  to  the  things  of  God,  it  laughs 
at  them.  He  scoffs  like  Lucian,  and  by  and  by  he  will  say, 
Behold,  how  are  these  among  the  saints  whose  life  we 
counted  for  folly. 

"  I  bid  you,  therefore,  take  heed  of  Erasmus.  He  treats 
theology  as  a  fool's  jest,  and  the  Gospel  as  a  fable  good  for 
the  ignorant  to  believe." 

Of  Erasmus  personally,  much  of  this  was  unjust  and  un- 
true. Erasmus  knew  many  things  which  it  would  have 
been  well  for  Luther  to  have  known ;  and,  as  a  man,  he 
was  better  than  his  principles. 

But  if  for  the  name  of  Erasmus  we  substitute  the  theory 
of  human  things  which  Erasmus  represented,  between  that 
creed  and  Luther  there  is,  and  must  be,  an  eternal  antag- 
onism. 

If  to  be  true  in  heart  and  just  in  act  are  the  first  quali- 
ties necessary  for  the  elevation  of  humanity ;  if  without 
these  all  else  is  worthless,  intellectual  culture  cannot  give 
what  intellectual  culture  does  not  require  or  imply.  You 
cultivate  the  plant  which  has  already  life  ;  you  will  waste 
your  labor  in  cultivating  a  stone.  The  moral  life  is  the 
counterpart  of  the  natural,  alike  mysterious  in  its  origin, 
and  alike  visible  only  in  its  effects. 

Intellectual  gifts  are  like  gifts  of  strength,  or  wealth,  or 
rank,  or  worldly  poAver,  —  splendid  instruments  if  nobly 
used,  but  requiring  qualities  to  use  them  nobler  and  better 
than  themselves. 


126  Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther. 

The  rich  man  may  spend  his  wealth  on  vulgar  luxury. 
The  clever  man  may  live  for  intellectual  enjoyment,  —  re- 
fined enjoyment  it  may  be,  but  enjoyment  still,  and  still 
centring  in  self. 

If  the  spirit  of  Erasmus  had  prevailed,  it  would  have 
been  with  modern  Europe  as  with  the  Roman  Empire  in 
its  decay.  The  educated  would  have  been  mere  skeptics ; 
the  multitude  would  have  been  sunk  in  superstition.  In 
both  alike  all  would  have  perished  which  deserves  the  name 
of  manliness. 

And  this  leads  me  to  the  last  observation  that  I  have  to 
make  to  you.  In  the  sciences,  the  philosopher  leads  ;  the 
rest  of  us  take  on  trust  what  he  tells  us.  The  spiritual 
progress  of  mankind  has  followed  the  opposite  course. 
Each  forward  step  has  been  made  first  among  the  people, 
and  the  last  converts  have  been  among  the  learned. 

The  explanation  is  not  far  to  look  for.  In  the  sciences 
there  is  no  temptation  of  self-interest  to  mislead.  In  mat- 
ters which  affect  life  and  conduct,  the  interests  and  preju- 
dices of  the  cultivated  classes  are  enlisted  on  the  side  of 
the  existing  order  of  things,  and  their  better-trained  facul- 
ties and  larger  acquirements  serve  only  to  find  them  argu- 
ments for  believing  what  they  wish  to  believe. 

Simpler  men  have  less  to  lose  ;  they  come  more  in  con- 
tact with  the  realities  of  life,  and  they  learn  wisdom  in  the 
experience  of  suffering. 

Thus  it  was  that  when  the  learned  and  the  wise  turned 
away  from  Christianity,  the  fishermen  of  the  Galilean  lake 
listened,  and  a  new  life  began  for  mankind.  A  miner's  son 
converted  Germany  to  the  Reformation.  The  London  arti- 
sans and  the  peasants  of  Buckinghamshire  went  to  the 
stake  for  doctrines  which  were  accepted  afterwards  as  a 
second  revelation. 

So  it  has  been ;  so  it  will  be  to  the  end.  When  a  great 
teacher  comes  again  upon  the  earth,  he  will  find  his  first 
disciples  where  Christ  found  them  and  Luther  found  them 


Times  of  Erasmus  and  Luther.  127 

Had  Luther  written  for  the  learned,  the  words  which 
changed  the  face  of  Europe  would  have  slumbered  in  im- 
potence on  the  book-shelves. 

In  appealing  to  the  German  nation,  you  will  agree,  I 
think,  with  me,  that  he  did  well  and  not  ill ;  you  will  not 
sacrifice  his  great  name  to  the  disdain  of  a  shallow  philos- 
ophy, or  to  the  grimacing  of  a  dead  superstition,  whose 
ghost  is  struggling  out  of  its  grave. 


me 

INFLUENCE   OF  THE  REFORMATION 

ON  THE 

SCOTTISH    CHARACTER: 

A  LECTURE  DELIVERED  AT  EDINBURGH,  NOVEMBER,  1865. 


I  HAVE  undertaken  to  speak  this  evening  on  the  effects 
of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland,  and  I  consider  myself  a 
very  bold  person  to  have  come  here  on  any  such  undertak- 
ing. In  the  first  place,  the  subject  is  one  \vith  which  it  is 
presumptuous  for  a  stranger  to  meddle.  Great  national 
movements  can  only  be  understood  properly  by  the  people 
whose  disposition  they  represent.  We  say  ourselves  about 
our  own  history  that  only  Englishmen  can  properly  com- 
prehend it.  The  late  Chevalier  Bunsen  once  said  to  me  of 
our  own  Reformation  in  England,  that,  for  his  part,  he 
could  not  conceive*  how  we  had  managed  to  come  by  such 
a  thing.  We  seemed  to  him  to  be  an  obdurate,  impene- 
trable, stupid  people,  hide-bound  by  tradition  and  prece- 
dent, and  too  self-satisfied  to  be  either  willing  or  able  to 
take  in  new  ideas  upon  any  theoretic  subject  whatever, 
especially  German  ideas.  That  is  to  say,  he  could  not  get 
inside  the  English  mind.  He  did  not  know  that  some  peo- 
ple go  furthest  and  go  fastest  when  they  look  one  way  and 
row  the  other.  It  is  the  same  with  every  considerable  na- 
tion. They  work  out  their  own  political  and  spiritual  lives 
through  tempers,  humors,  and  passions  peculiar  to  them- 


The  Influence  of  the  Reformation,  etc.        129 

selves  ;  and  the  same  disposition  which  produces  the  result 
is  required  to  interpret  it  afterwards.  This  is  one  reason 
why  I  should  feel  diffident  about  what  I  have  undertaken. 
Another  is,  that  I  do  not  conceal  from  myself  that  the  sub- 
ject is  an  exceedingly  delicate  one.  The  blazing  passions 
of  those  stormy  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  are  no 
longer,  happily,  at  their  old  temperature.  The  story  of 
those  times  call  now  be  told  or  listened  to  with  something 
like  impartiality.  Yet,  if  people  no  longer  hate  each  other 
for  such  matters,  the  traditions  of  the  struggle  survive  in 
strong  opinions  and  sentiments,  which  it  is  easy  to  wound 
without  intending  it. 

My  own  conviction  with  respect  to  all  great  social  and 
religious  convulsions  is  the  extremely  commonplace  one, 
thai*  much  is  to  be  said  on  both  sides.  I  believe  that  no» 
where  and  at  ho  time  any  such  struggle  can  take  place  on 
a  large  scale,  unless  each  party  is  contending  for  some* 
thing  which  has  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  it.  Where  the 
right  is  plain$  honest,  Wise,  and  noble-minded  men  are  all 
on  one  side  ;  and  only  rogues  and  fools  are  on  the  other* 
Where  the  wise  and  good  are  divided,  the"  truth  is  gener- 
ally found  to  be  divided  also.  But  this  is  precisely  what 
cannot  be  admitted  as  long  as  the  conflict  continues.  Men 
begin  to  fight  about  things  when  reason  and  argument  fail 
to  convince  them.  They  make  up  in  passion  what  is  want* 
ing  in  logic.  Each  side  believes  that  all  the  right  is  theirs 
—  that  their  enemies  haVe  all  the  bad  qualities  which  their 
language  contains  names  for;  and  even  now,  on  the  subject 
on  which  I  have  to  talk  to-night,  one  has  but  to  take  up 
any  magazine,  review,  newspaper,  or  party  organ  of  any 
kind  which  touches  on  it,  to  see  that  opinion  is  still  Whig 
or  Tory,  Cavalier  or  Roundhead,  Protestant  or  Catholic,  as 
the  case  may  be.  The  unfortunate  person  who  is  neither 
wholly  one,  nor  wholly  the  other  is  in  the  position  of  Ham-* 
let's  "  baser  nature,"  "  between  the  incensed  points  of 
mighty  opposites."  He  is  the  Laodicean,  neither  cold  nor 


ISO  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation 

hot,  whom  decent  people  consider  bad  company.  He 
pleases  no  one,  and  hurts  the  sensitiveness  of  all. 

Here,  then,  are  good  reasons  why  I  should  have  either 
not  come  here  at  all,  or  else  should  have  chosen  some 
other  matter  to  talk  about  In  excuse  for  persisting,  I  can 
but  say  that  the  subject  is  one  about  which  I  have  been 
led  by  circumstances  to  read  and  think  considerably ;  and 
though,  undoubtedly,  each  of  us  knows  more  about  him- 
self and  his  own  affairs  than  any  one  else  can  possibly 
know,  yet  a  stranger's  eye  will  sometimes  see  things  which 
escape  those  more  immediately  interested ;  and  I  allow 
myself  to  hope  that  I  may  have  something  to  say  not 
altogether  undeserving  your  attention.  I  shall  touch  as 
little  as  possible  on  questions  of  opinion ;  and  if  I  tread 
by  accident  on  any  sensitive  point,  I  must  trust  to  your 
kindness  to  excuse  my  awkwardness. 

Well,  then,  if  we  look  back  on  Scotland  as  it  stood  in 
the  first  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century,  we  see  a  country 
in  which  the  old  feudal  organization  continued,  so  far  as  it 
generally  affected  the  people,  more  vigorous  than  in  any 
other  part  of  civilized  Europe.  Elsewhere,  the  growth  of 
trade  and  of  large  towns  had  created  a  middle  class,  with 
an  organization  of  their  own,  independent  of  the  lords. 
In  Scotland,  the  towns  were  still  scanty  and  poor ;  such  as 
they  were,  they  were  for  the  most  part  under  the  control 
of  the  great  nobleman  who  happened  to  live  nearest  to 
them ;  and  a  people,  as  in  any  sense  independent  of  lords, 
knights,  abbots,  or  prelates,  under  whose  rule  they  were 
born,  had  as  yet  no  existence.  The  tillers  of  the  soil  (and 
the  soil  was  very  miserably  tilled)  lived  under  the  shadow 
of  the  castle  or  the  monastery.  They  followed  their  lord's 
fortunes,  fought  his  battles,  believed  in  his  politics,  and 
supported  him  loyally  in  his  sins  or  his  good  deeds,  as  the 
case  might  be.  There  was  much  moral  beauty  in  the  life 
of  those  times.  The  loyal  attachment  of  man  to  man  — 
of  liege  servant  to  liege  lord  —  of  all  forms  under  which 


on.  the  Scottish  Character.  131 

human  beings  can  live  and  work  together,  has  most  of 
grace  and  humanity  about  it.  It  cannot  go  on  without 
mutual  confidence  and  affection  —  mutual  benefits  given 
and  received.  The  length  of  time  which  the  system 
lasted,  proves  that  in  the  main  there  must  have  been  a  fine 
fidelity  in  the  people  —  truth,  justice,  generosity  in  their 
leaders.  History  brings  down  many  bad  stories  to  us  out 
of  those  times ;  just  as  in  these  islands  nowadays,  you  may 
find  bad  instances  of  the  abuses  of  rights  of  property. 
You  may  find  stories — too  many  also  —  of  husbands  ill- 
using  their  wives,  and  so  on.  Yet  we  do  not  therefore  lay 
the  blame  on  marriage,  or  suppose  that  the  institution  of 
property,  on  the  whole,  does  more  harm  than  good.  I  do 
not  doubt  that  down  in  that  feudal  system  somewhere  lie 
the  roots  of  some  of  the  finest  qualities  in  the  European 
peoples. 

So  much  for  the  temporal  side  of  the  matter ;  and  the 
spiritual  was  not  very  unlike  it.  As  no  one  lived  independ- 
ently, in  our  modern  sense  of  the  word,  so  no  one  thought 
independently.  The  minds  of  men  were  looked  after  by  a 
Church,  which,  for  a  long  time,  also,  did,  I  suppose,  very 
largely  fulfill  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  intended.  It 
kept  alive  and  active  the  belief  that  the  world  was  created 
and  governed  by  a  just  Being,  who  hated  sins  and  crimes, 
and  steadily  punished  such  things.  It  taught  men  that 
they  had  immortal  souls,  and  that  this  little  bit  of  life  was 
an  entirely  insignificant  portion  of  their  real  existence. 
It  taught  these  truths,  indeed,  along  with  a  great  deal 
which  we  now  consider  to  have  been  a  mistake  —  a  great 
many  theories  of  earthly  things  which  have  since  passed 
away,  and  special  opinions  clothed  in  outward  forms  and 
ritual  observances  which  we  hei'e,  most  of  us  at  least,  do 
not  think  essential  for  our  soul's  safety.  But  mistakes 
like  these  are  hurtful  only  when  persisted  in  in  the  face  of 
fuller  truth,  after  truth  has  been  discovered.  Only  a  very 
foolish  man  would  now  uphold  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy, 


132  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation 

But  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy,  when  first  invented,  was 
based  on  real  if  incomplete  observations,  and  formed  a 
groundwork  without  which  further  progress  in  that  science 
would  have  been  probably  impossible.  The  theories  and 
.ceremonials  of  the  Catholic  Church  suited  well  with  an 
age  in  which  little  was  known  and  much  was  imagined ; 
when  superstition  was  active  and  science  was  not  yet  born. 
When  I  am  told  here  or  anywhere  that  the  Middle  Ages- 
were  times  of  mere  spiritual  darkness  and  priestly  oppres- 
sion, with  the  other  usual  formulas,  I  say,  as  I  said  before, 
if  the  Catholic  Church,  for  those  many  centuries  that  it 
reigned  supreme  over  all  men's  consciences,  was  no  better 
than  the  thing  which  we  see  in  the  generation  which  imme- 
diately preceded  the  Reformation,  it  could  not  have  existed 
at  all.  You  might  as  well  argue  that  the  old  fading  tree 
could  never  have  been  green  and  young.  Institutions  do 
not  live  on  lies.  They  either  live  by  the  truth  and  useful- 
ness which  there  is  in  them,  or  they  do  not  live  at  all. 

So  things  went  on  for  several  hundred  years.  There 
were  scandals  enough,  and  crimes  enough,  and  feuds,  and 
murders,  and  civil  wars.  Systems-,  however  good,  cannot 
prevent  eviL  They  can  but  compress  it  within  moderate 
and  tolerable  limits.  I  should  conclude,  however,  that, 
measuring  by  the  average  happiness  of  the  masses  of  the 
people,  the  mediaeval  institutions  were  very  well  suited  for 
the  inhabitants  of  these  countries  as  they  then  were, 
Adam  Smith  and  Bentham  themselves  could  hardly  have 
mended  them  if  they  had  tried. 

But  times  change,  and  good  things  as  well  as  bad  grow 
old  and  have  to  die.  The  heart  of  the  matter  which  the 
Catholic  Church  had  taught  was  the  fear  of  God  ;  but  the 
language  of  it  and  the  formulas  of  it,  were  made  np  of 
human  ideas  and  notions  about  things  which  the  mere  in- 
crease of  human  knowledge  gradually  made  incredible. 
To  trace  the  reason  of  this  would  lead  us  a  long  way.  It 
is  intelligible  enough,  but  it  would  take  us  into  subjects 


on  the  Scottish  Character.  13S 

better  avoided  here.  It  is  enough  to  say  that,  \\  ftile  the 
essence  of  religion  remains  the  same,  the  mode  in  which  it 
is  expressed  changes  and  has  changed  — -  changes  as  living 
languages  change  and  become  dead,  as  institutions  change, 
as  forms  of  government  change,  as  opinion  on  all  things  in 
heaven  and  earth  change,  as  half  the  theories  held  at  this 
time  among  ourselves  will  probably  change  —  that  is,  the 
outward  and  mortal  parts  of  them.  Thus  the  Catholic  for- 
mulas, instead  of  living  symbols,  became  dead  and  power- 
less cabalistic  signs.  The  religion  lost  its  hold  on  the  con- 
science and  the  intellect,  and  the  effect,  singularly  enough, 
appeared  in  the  shepherds  before  it  made  itself  felt  among 
the  flocks.  From  the  See  of  St.  Peter  to  the  far  monas- 
teries in  the  Hebrides  or  the  Isle  of  Arran,  the  laity  were 
shocked  and  scandalized  at  the  outrageous  doings  of  high 
cardinals,  prelates,  priests,  and  monks.  It  was  clear 
enough  that  these  great  personages  themselves  did  not 
believe  what  they  taught ;  so  why  should  the  people  believe 
it  ?  And  serious  men,  to  whom  the  fear  of  God  was  a  liv- 
ing reality,  began  to  look  into  the  matter  for  themselves. 
The  first  steps  everywhere  were  taken  with  extreme  reluc- 
tance ;  and  had  the  popes  and  cardinals  been  wise,  they 
would  have  taken  the  lead  in  the  inquiry,  cleared  their 
teaching  of  its  lumber,  and  taken  out  a  new  lease  of  life 
both  for  it,  and  for  themselves.  An  infallible  pope  and  an 
infallible  council  might  have  done  something  in  this  way, 
if  good  sense  had  been  among  the  attributes  of  their  om- 
niscience. What  they  did  do  was  something  very  different. 
It  was  as  if,  when  the  new  astronomy  began  to  be  taught, 
the  professors  of  that  science  in  all  the  universities  of 
Europe  had  met  together  and  decided  that  Ptolemy's 
cycles  and  epicycles  were  eternal  verities ;  that  the  theory 
of  the  rotation  of  the  earth  was  and  must  be  a  damnable 
heresy  ;  and  had  invited  the  civil  authorities  to  help  them 
in  putting  down  by  force  all  doctrines  but  their  own.  This, 
or  something  very  like  it,  was  the  position  taken  up  in 


134  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation 

theology  by  the  Council  of  Trent.  The  bishops  assembled 
there  did  not  reason.  They  decided  by  vote  that  certain 
things  were  true,  and  were  to  be  believed ;  and  the  only 
arguments  which  they  condescended  to  use  were  fire  and 
fagot,  and  so  on.  How  it  fared  with  them,  and  with  this 
experiment  of  theirs,  we  all  know  tolerably  well. 

The  effect  was  very  different  in  different  countries. 
Here,  in  Scotland,  the  failure  was  most  marked  and  com- 
plete, but  the  way  in  which  it  came  about  was  in  many 
ways  peculiar.  In  Germany,  Luther  was  supported  by 
princes  and  nobles.  In  England,  the  Reformation  rapidly 
mixed  itself  up  with  politics  and  questions  of  rival  juris- 
diction. Both  in  England  and  Germany,  the  Revolution, 
wherever  it  established  itself,  was  accepted  early  by  the 
Crown  or  the  Government,  and  by  them  legally  recognized. 
Here,  it  was  far  otherwise  :  the  Protestantism  of  Scotland 
was  the  creation  of  the  commons,  as  in  turn  the  commons 
may  be  said  to  have  been  created  by  Protestantism.  There 
were  many  young  high-spirited  men,  belonging  to  the  no- 
blest families  in  the  country,  who  were  among  the  earliest 
to  rally  round  the  Reforming  preachers ;  but  authority, 
both  in  Church  and  State,  set  the  other  way.  The  congre- 
gations who  gathered  in  the  fields  around  Wishart  and 
John  Knox  were,  for  the  most  part,  farmers,  laborers,  arti- 
sans, tradesmen,  or  the  smaller  gentry  ;  and  thus,  for  the 
first  time  in  Scotland,  there  was  created  an  organization  of 
men  detached  from  the  lords  and  from  the  Church  —  brave, 
noble,  resolute,  daring  people,  bound  together  by  a  sacred 
cause  unrecognized  by  the  leaders  whom  they  had  followed 
hitherto  with  undoubting  allegiance.  That  spirit  which 
grew  in  time  to  be  the  ruling  power  of  Scotland  —  that 
which  formed  eventually  its  laws  and  its  creed,  and  deter- 
mined its  after-fortunes  as  a  nation  —  had  its  first  germ  in 
these  half-outlawed  wandering  congregations.  In  this  it 
was  that  the  Reformation  in  Scotland  differed  from  the 
Reformatior  in  any  other  part  of  Europe.  Elsewhere 


on  the  Scottish  Character.  135 

is  found  a  middle  class  existing  —  created  already  by  trade 
or  by  other  causes.  It  raised  and  elevated  them,  but  it  did 
not  materially  affect  their  political  condition.  In  Scotland 
the  commons,  as  an  organized  body,  were  simply  created 
by  religion.  Before  the  Reformation  they  had  no  political 
existence  ;  and  therefore  it  has  been  that  the  print  of  their 
origin  has  gone  so  deeply  into  their  social  constitution.  On 
them,  and  them  only,  the  burden  of  the  work  of  the  Ref- 
ormation was  eventually  thrown ;  and  when  they  tri- 
umphed at  last,  it  was  inevitable  that  both  they  and  it 
should  react  one  upon  the  other. 

How  this  came  about  I  must  endeavor  to  describe,  al- 
though I  can  give  but  a  brief  sketch  of  an  exceedingly 
complicated  matter.  Every  body  knows  the  part  played 
by  the  aristocracy  of  Scotland  in  the  outward  revolution, 
when  the  Reformation  first  became  the  law  of  the  land. 
It  would  seem  at  first  sight  as  if  it  had  been  the  work  of 
the  whole  nation  —  as  if  it  had  been  a  thing  on  which 
high  and  low  were  heartily  united.  Yet  on  the  first  girt :IL-J 
below  the  surface  you  see  that  the  greater  part  of  the  no- 
ble lords  concerned  in  that  business  cared  nothing  about 
the  Reformation  at  all ;  or,  if  they  cared,  they  rather  dis- 
liked it  than  otherwise.  How,  then,  did  they  come  to  act 
as  they  did  ?  or,  how  came  they  to  permit  a  change  of  such 
magnitude  when  they  had  so  little  sympathy  with  it  ?  I 
must  make  a  slight  circuit  to  look  for  the  explanation. 

The  one  essentially  noble  feature  in  the  great  families  of 
Scotland  was  their  patriotism.  They  loved  Scotland  and 
Scotland's  freedom  with  a  passion  proportioned  to  the  diffi- 
culty with  which  they  had  defended  their  liberties ;  and  yet 
the  wisest  of  them  had  long  seen  that,  sooner  or  later, 
union  with  England  was  inevitable  ;  and  the  question  was, 
how  that  union  was  to  be  brought  about  —  how  they  were 
to  make  sure  that,  when  it  came,  they  should  take  their 
place  at  England's  side  as  equals,  and  not  as  a  dependency. 
It  had  been  arranged  that  the  little  Mary  Stuart  should 


136  The  Influence  of  the  '^Reformation 

marry  our  English  Edward  VI.,  and  the  difficulty  was  to 
be  settled  so.  They  would  have  been  contented,  they  said, 
if  Scotland  had  had  the  "  lad "  and  England  the  ';  lass." 
As  it  stood,  they  broke  their  bargain,  and  married  the  lit- 
ile  queen  away  into  France,  to  prevent  the  Protector  Som- 
erset from  getting  hold  of  her.  Then,  however,  appeared 
an  opposite  danger ;  the  queen  would  become  a  French- 
woman ;  her  French  mother  governed  Scotland  with 
French  troops  and  French  ministers  ;  the  country  would 
become  a  French  province,  and  lose  its  freedom  equally. 
Thus  an  English  party  began  again  ;  and  as  England  was 
then  in  the  middle  of  her  great  anti- Church  revolution,  so 
the  Scottish  nobles  began  to  be  anti-Church.  It  was  not 
for  doctrines :  neither  they  nor  their  brothers  in  England 
cared  much  about  doctrines ;  but  in  both  countries  the 
Church  was  rich  — much  richer  than  there  seemed  any 
occasion  for  it  to  be.  Harry  the  Eighth  had  been  sharing 
among  the  laity  the  spoils  of  the  English  monasteries  : 
the  Scotch  Lords  saw  in  a  similar  process  the  probability 
of  a  welcome  addition  to  their  own  scanty  incomes.  Mary 
of  Guise  and  the  French  stood  by  the  Church,  and  the 
Church  stood  by  them ;  and  so  it  came  about  that  the 
great  families'—  even  those  who,  like  the  Hamiltons,  were 
most  closely  connected  with  France  —  were  tempted  over 
by  the  bait  to  the  other  side.  They  did  not  want  reformed 
doctrines,  but  they  wanted  the  Church  lands  ;  and  so  they 
came  to  patronize,  or  endure,  the  Reformers,  because  the 
Church  hated  them,  and  because  they  weakened  the 
Church  ;  and  thus  for  a  time,  and  especially  as  long  as 
.Mary  Stuart  was  Queen  of  France,  all  classes  in  Scotland, 
high  and  low,  seemed  to  fraternize  in  favor  of  the  revolu- 
tion. 

And  it  seemed  as  if  the  union  of  the  realms  could  be 
effected  at  last,  at  the  same  juncture,  and  in  connection 
with  the  same  movement.  Next  in  succession  to  the 
ScotcV  crown,  after  Mary  Stuart,  was  the  house  of  Hamil- 


on  the  Scottish  Character.  137 

ton.  Elizabeth,  who  had  just  come  to  the  English  throne, 
was  supposed  to  be  in  want  of  a  husband.  The  heir  of 
the  Hamiltons  was  of  her  own  age,  and  in  years  past  had 
been  thought  of  for  her  by  her  father.  What  could  be 
more  fit  than  to  make  a  match  between  those  two  ?  Send 
a  Scot  south  to  be  King  of  England,  find  or  make  some 
pretext  to  shake  off  Mary  Stuart,  who  had  forsaken  her 
native  country,  and  so  join  the  crowns,  the  "  lass  "  and  the 
"  lad  "  being  now  in  the  right  relative  position.  Scotland 
would  thus  annex  her  old  oppressor,  and  give  her  a  new 
dynasty. 

I  seem  to  be  straying  from  the  point;  but  these  political 
schemes  had  so  much  to  do  with  the  actions  of  the  leading 
men  at  that  time,  that  the  story  of  the  Eeformation  cannot 
be  understood  without  them.  It  was  thus,  and  with  these 
incongruous  objects,  that  the  combination  was  formed 
which  overturned  the  old  Church  of  Scotland  in  1559-60, 
confiscated  its  possessions,  destroyed  its  religious  houses, 
and  changed  its  creed.  The  French  were  driven  away 
from  Leith  by  Elizabeth's  troops ;  the  Reformers  took  pos- 
session of  the  churches ;  and  the  Parliament  of  1560  met 
with  a  clear  stage  to  determine  for  themselves  the  future 
fate  of  the  country.  Now,  I  think  it  certain  that,  if  the 
Scotch  nobility,  having  once  accepted  the  Reformation,  had 
continued  loyal  to  it,  —  especially  if  Elizabeth  had  met 
their  wishes  in  the  important  point  of  the  marriage,  —  the 
form  of  the  Scotch  Kirk  would  have  been  something  ex- 
tremely different  from  what  it  in  fact  became.  The  people 
were  perfectly  well  inclined  to  follow  their  natural  leaders 
if  the  matters  on  which  their  hearts  were  set  had  received 
tolerable  consideration  from  them,  and  the  democratic  form 
of  the  ecclesiastical  constitution  would  have  been  inevitably 
modified.  One  of  the  conditions  of  the  proposed  compact 
with  England  was  the  introduction  of  the  English  Liturgy 
and  the  English  Church  constitution.  This  too,  at  the  outset, 
and  with  fair  dealing,  would  not  have  been  found  impossible. 


138  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation 

But  it  soon  became  clear  that  the  religious  interests  of 
Scotland  were  the  very  last  thing  which  would  receive  con- 
sideration from  any  of  the  high  political  personages  con- 
cerned. John  Knox  had  dreamt  of  a  constitution  like 
that  which  he  had  seen  working  under  Calvin  at  Geneva  — 
a  constitution  in  which  the  clergy  as  ministers  of  God 
should  rule  all  things ;  rule  politically  at  the  council  board, 
and  rule  in  private  at  the  fireside.  It  was  soon  made  plain 
to  Knox  that  Scotland  was  not  Geneva.  "  Eh,  mon,"  said 
the  younger  Maitland  to  him,  "  then  we  may  all  bear  the 
barrow  now  to  build  the  House  of  the  Lord."  Not  exactly. 
The  churches  were  left  to  the  ministers ;  the  worldly  good 
things  and  worldly  power  remained  with  the  laity ;  and  as 
to  religion,  circumstances  would  decide  what  they  would  do 
about  that.  Again,  I  am  not  speaking  of  all  the  great  men 
of  those  times.  Glencairn,  Ruthven,  young  Argyll  —  above 
all,  the  Earl  of  Moray  —  really  did  in  some  degree  interest 
themselves  in  the  Kirk.  But  what  most  of  them  felt  was 
perhaps  rather  broadly  expressed  by  Maitland  when  he 
called  religion  "  a  bogle  of  the  nursery."  That  was  the  ex- 
pression which  a  Scotch  statesman  of  those  days  actually 
ventured  to  use.  Had  Elizabeth  been  -  conformable,  no 
doubt  they  would  in  some  sense  or  other  have  remained  on 
the  side  of  the  Reformation.  But  here,  too,  there  was  a 
serious  hitch.  Elizabeth  would  not  marry  Arran.  Eliza- 
beth would  be  no  party  to  any  of  their  intrigues.  She  de- 
tested Knox.  She  detested  Protestantism  entirely,  in  all 
shapes  in  which  Knox  approved  of  it.  She  affronted  the 
nobles  on  one  side,  she  affronted  the  people  on  another ; 
and  all  idea  of  uniting  the  two  crowns  after  the  fashion 
proposed  by  the  Scotch  Parliament  she  utterly  and  entirely 
repudiated.  She  was  right  enough,  perhaps,  so  far  as  this 
was  concerned ;  but  she  left  the  ruling  families  extremely 
perplexed  as  to  the  course  which  they  would  follow.  They 
had  allowed  the  country  to  be  revolutionized  in  the  teeth 
of  their  own  sovereign,  and  what  to  do  next  they  did  not 
very  well  know. 


on  tJie  /Scottish   Character.  139 

It  was  at  this  crisis  that  circumstances  came  in  to  their 
help.  Francis  the  Second  died.  Mary  Stuart  was  left  a 
childless  widow.  Her  connection  with  the  crown  of  France 
was  at  an  end,  and  all  danger  on  that  side  to  the  liberties 
of  Scotland  at  an  end  also.  The  Arran  scheme  having 
failed,  she  would  be  a  second  card  as  good  as  the  first  to 
play  for  the  English  crown ;  as  good  as  he,  or  better,  for 
she  would  have  the  English  Catholics  on  her  side.  So, 
careless  how  it  would  affect  religion,  and  making  no  condi- 
tion at  all  about  that,  the  same  men  who  a  year  before  were 
ready  to  whistle  Mary  Stuart  down  the  wind,  now  invited 
her  back  to  Scotland ;  the  same  men  who  had  been  the 
loudest  friends  of  Elizabeth  now  encouraged  Mary  Stuart 
to  persist  in  the  pretension  to  the  crown  of  England,  which 
had  led  to  all  the  past  trouble.  While  in  France,  she  had 
assumed  the  title  of  Queen  of  England.  She  had  prom- 
ised to  abandon  it,  but,  finding  her  own  people  ready  to 
support  her  in  withdrawing  her  promise,  she  stood  out, 
insisting  that  at  all  events  the  English  Parliament  should 
declare  her  next  in  the  succession  ;  and  it  was  well  known 
that,  as  soon  as  the  succession  was  made  sure  in  her  favor, 
some  rascal  would  be  found  to  put  a  knife  or  a  bullet  into 
Elizabeth.  The  object  of  the  Scotch  nobles  was  political, 
national,  patriotic.  For  religion  it  was  no  great  matter 
either  way ;  ancl  as  they  had  before  acted  with  the  Protest- 
ants, so  now  they  were  ready  to  turn  about,  and  openly  or 
tacitly  act  with  the  Catholics.  Mary  Stuart's  friends  in 
England  and  on  the  Continent  were  Catholics,  and  there- 
fore it  would  not  do  to  offend  them.  First,  she  was  allowed 
to  have  mass  at  Holyrood ;  then  there  was  a  move  for  a 
broader  toleration.  That  one  mass,  Knox  said,  was  more 
terrible  to  him  than  ten  thousand  armed  men  landed  in  the 
country,  and  he  had  perfectly  good  reason  for  saying  so. 
He  thoroughly  understood  that  it  was  the  first  step  towards 
a  counter-revolution  which  in  time  would  cover  all  Scotland 
and  England,  and  carry  them  bar.k  to  Popery.  Yet  he 


140  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation 

preached  to  deaf  ears.  Even  Murray  was  so  bewitched 
with  the  notion  of  the  English  succession,  that  for  a  year 
and  a  half  he  ceased  to  speak  to  Knox  ;  and  as  it  was  with 
Murray,  so  it  was  far  more  with  all  the  rest ,  their  zeal  for 
religion  was  gone  no  one  knew  where.  Of  course  Eliza- 
beth would  not  give  way.  She  might  as  well,  she  said,  her- 
self prepare  her  shroud  ;  and  then  conspiracies  came,  and 
underground  intrigues  with  the  Romanist  English  noble- 
men. France  and  Spain  were  to  invade  England;  Scot- 
hind  was  to  open  its  ports  to  their  fleets,  and  its  soil  to  their 
armies,  giving  them  a  safe  base  from  which  to  act,  and  a 
dry  road  over  the  Marches  to  London.  And  if  Scotland 
had  remained  unchanged  from  what  it  had  been, —  had  the 
direction  of  its  fortunes  remained  with  the  prince  and  with 
the  nobles,  sooner  or  later  it  would  have  come  to  this.  But 
suddenly  it  appeared  that  there  was  a  new  power  in  this 
country  which  no  one  suspected  till  it  was  felt. 

The  commons  of  Scotland  had  hitherto  been  the  creat- 
ures of  the  nobles.  They  had  neither  will  nor  opinion  of 
their  own.  They  thought  and  acted  in  the  spirit  of  their 
immediate  allegiance.  Xo  one  seems  to  have  dreamt  that 
there  would  be  any  difficulty  in  dealing  with  them  if  once 
the  great  families  agreed  upon  a  common  course.  Yet  it 
appeared,  when  the  pressure  came,  that  religion,  which  was 
the  plaything  of  the  nobles,  was  to  the  people  a  clear  mat- 
ter of  life  and  death.  They  might  love  their  country;  they 
might  be  proud  of  any  thing  which  would  add  lustre  to  its 
crown  ;  but  if  it  was  to  bring  back  the  Pope  and  Popery, 
—  if  it  threatened  to  bring  them  back,  —  if  it  looked  that 
way,  they  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  it ;  nor  would 
they  allow  it  to  be  done.  Allegiance  was  well  enough  ; 
but  there  was  a  higher  allegiance  suddenly  discovered 
which  superseded  all  earthly  considerations.  I  know  noth- 
ing finer  in  Scottish  history  than  the  way  in  which  the 
commons  of  the  Lowlands  took  their  places  by  the  side  of 
Knox  in  the  great  convulsions  which  followed.  If  all  others 


on  the  Scottish   Character.  141 

forsook  him,  they  at  least  would  never  forsake  him  while 
tongue  remained  to  speak  and  hand  remained  to  strikt. 
Broken  they  might  have  been,  trampled  out  as  the  Hugue- 
nots at  last  were  trampled  out  in  France,  had  Mary  Stuart 
been  less  than  the  most  imprudent  or  the  most  unlucky  of 
sovereigns.  But  Providence,  or  the  folly  of  those  with 
whom  they  had  to  deal,  fought  for  them.  I  need  not  follow 
the  wild  story  of  the  crimes  and  catastrophes  in  which 
Mary  Stuart's  short  reign  in  Scotland  closed.  Neither  is 
her  own  share,  be  it  great  or  small,  or  none  at  all,  in  those 
crimes,  of  any  moment  to  us  here.  It  is  enough  that,  both 
before  that  strange  business  and  after  it,  when  at  Holyrood 
or  across  the  Border,  in  Sheffield  or  Tutbury,  her  ever- 
favorite  dream  was  still  the  English  throne.  Her  road 
towards  it  was  through  a  Catholic  revolution  and  the  mur- 
der of  Elizabeth.  It  is  enough  that,  both  before  and  after, 
the  aristocracy  of  Scotland,  even  those  among  them  who 
had  seemed  most  zealous  for  the  Reformation,  were  eager 
to  support  her.  John  Knox  alone,  and  the  commons,  whom 
Knox  had  raised  into  a  political  power,  remained  true. 

Much,  indeed,  is  to  be  said  for  the  Scotch  nobles.  In 
the  first  shock  of  the  business  at  K5rk-o'-Field,  they  forgot 
their  politics  in  a  sense  of  national  disgrace.  They  sent 
the  queen  to  Loch  Leven.  They  intended  to  bring  her  to 
trial,  and,  if  she  was  proved  guilty,  to  expose  and  perhaps 
punish  her.  All  parties  for  a  time  agreed  in  this,  even  the 
Hamiltons  themselves  ;  and  had  they  been  left  alone  they 
would  have  done  it.  But  they  had  a  perverse  neighbor  in 
England,  to  whom  crowned  heads  were  sacred.  Elizabeth, 
it  might  have  been  thought,  would  have  had  no  particular 
objection  ;  but  Elizabeth  had  aims  of  her  own  which  baffled 
calculation.  Elizabeth,  the  representative  of  revolution, 
yet  detested  revolutionists.  The  Reformers  in  Scotland, 
the  Huguenots  in  France,  the  insurgents  in  the  United 
Provinces,  were  the  only  friends  she  had  in  Europe.  For 
her  own  safety  she  was  obliged  to  encourage  them  ;  yet 


142  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation 

she  hated  them  all,  and  would  at  any  moment  have  aban- 
doned them  all,  if  in  any  other  way  she  could  have  secured 
herself.  She  might  have  conquered  her  personal  objection 
to  Knox ;  she  could  not  conquer  her  aversion  to  a  Church 
which  rose  out  of  revolt  against  authority,  which  was  demo- 
cratic in  constitution  and  republican  in  politics.  "When 
driven  into  alliance  with  the  Scotch  Protestants,  she  an- 
grily and  passionately  disclaimed  any  community  of  creed 
with  them  ;  and  for  subjects  to  sit  in  judgment  on  their 
prince  was  a  precedent  which  she  would  not  tolerate. 
Thus  she  flung  her  mantle  over  Mary  Stuart.  She  told 
the  Scotch  Council  here  in  Edinburgh  that,  if  they  hurt  a 
hair  of  her  head,  she  would  harry  their  country,  and  hang 
them  all  on  the  trees  round  the  town,  if  she  could  find  any 
trees  there  for  that  purpose.  She  tempted  the  queen  to 
England  with  her  fair  promises  after  the  battle  of  Lang- 
side,  and  then,  to  her  astonishment,  imprisoned  her.  Yet 
she  still  shielded  her  reputation,  still  fostered  her  party  in 
Scotland,  still  incessantly  threatened  and  incessantly  en- 
deavored to  restore  her.  She  kept  her  safe,  because,  in 
her  lucid  intervals,  her  ministers  showed  her  the  madness 
of  acting  otherwise.  Yet  for  three  years  she  kept  her  own 
people  in  a  fever  of  apprehension.  She  made  a  settled 
government  in  Scotland  impossible  ;  till,  distracted  and 
perplexed,  the  Scottish  statesmen  went  back  to  their  first 
schemes.  They  assured  themselves  that  in  one  way  or 
other  the  Queen  of  Scots  would  sooner  or  later  come  again 
among  them.  They,  and  others  besides  them,  believed 
that  Elizabeth  was  cutting  her  own  throat,  and  that  the 
best  that  they  could  do  was  to  recover  their  own  queen's 
favor,  and  make  the  most  of  her  and  her  titles  ;  and  so 
they  lent  themselves  again  to  the  English  Catholic  con- 
spiracies. 

The  Earl  of  Moray  —  the  one  supremely  noble  man  then 
living  in  the  country  —  was  put  out  of  the  way  by  an  as- 
sassin. French  and  Spanish  money  poured  in,  and  French 


on  the  Scottish   Character.  14* 

and  Spanish  armies  were  to  be  again  invited  over  to  Scot 
land.  This  is  the  form  in  which  the  drama  unfolds  itself 
in  the  correspondence  of  the  time.  Maitland,  the  soul  and 
spirit  of  it  all,  said,  in  scorn,  that  "  he  would  make  the 
Queen  of  England  sit  upon  her  tail  and  whine  like  a 
whipped  dog."  The  only  powerful  noblemen  who  remained 
on  the  Protestant  side  were  Lennox,  Morton,  and  Mar. 
Lord  Lennox  was  a  poor  creature,  and  was  soon  dispatched ; 
Mar  was  old  and  weak ;  and  Morton  was  an  unprincipled 
scoundrel,  who  used  the  Reformation  only  as  a  stalking 
horse  to  cover  the  spoils  which  he  had  clutched  in  the  con- 
fusion, and  was  ready  to  desert  the  cause  at  any  moment 
if  the  balance  of  advantage  shifted.  Even  the  ministers 
of  the  Kirk  were  fooled  and  flattered  over.  Maitland  told 
Mary  Stuart  that  he  had  gained  them  all  except  one. 

John  Knox  alone  defied  both  his  threats  and  his  persua 
sions.  Good  reason  has  Scotland  to  be  proud  of  Knox. 
He  only,  in  this  wild  crisis,  saved  the  Kirk  which  he  had 
founded,  and  saved  with  it  Scottish  and  English  freedom. 
But  for  Knox,  and  what  he  was  able  still  to  do,  it  is  almost 
certain  that  the  Duke  of  Alva's  army  would  have  been 
landed  on  the  eastern  coast.  The  conditions  were  drawn 
out  and  agreed  upon  for  the  reception,  the  support,  and  the 
stay  of  the  Spanish  troops.  Two  thirds  of  the  English 
peerage  had  bound  themselves  to  rise  against  Elizabeth, 
and  Alva  waited  only  till  Scotland  itself  was  quiet.  Only 
that  quiet  would  not  be.  Instead  of  quiet  came  three 
dreadful  years  of  civil  war.  Scotland  was  split  into  fac- 
tions, to  which  the  mother  and  the  son  gave  names.  The 
queen's  lords,  as  they  were  called,  with  unlimited  money 
from  France  and  Flanders,  held  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow , 
nil  the  border  line  was  theirs, 'and  all  the  north  and  west. 
Elizabeth's  Council,  wiser  than  their  mistress,  barely 
squeezed  out  of  her  reluctant  parsimony  enough  to  keep* 
Mar  and  Morton  from  making  terms  with  the  rest;  but 
there  her  assistance  ended.  She  wjuld  still  say  nothing, 


144  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation 

promise  nothing,  bind  herself  to  nothing,  and,  so  far  as  she 
was  concerned,  the  war  would  have  been  soon  enough 
brought  to  a  close.  But  away  at  St.  Andrews,  John 
Knox,  broken  in  body,  and  scarcely  able  to  stagger  up  the 
pulpit  stairs,  still  thundered  in  the  parish  church ;  and 
his  voice,  it  was  said,  was  like  ten  thousand  trumpets  bray- 
ing in  the  ear  of  Scottish  Protestantism.  All  the  Low- 
lands answered  to  his  call.  Our  English  Cromwell  found 
in  the  man  of  religion  a  match  for  the  man  of  honor.  Be- 
fore Cromwell,  all  over  the  Lothians,  and  across  from  St. 
Andrews  to  Stirling  and  Glasgow,  —  through  farm,  and 
town  and  village,  —  the  words  of  Knox  had  struck  the  in- 
most chords  of  the  Scottish  commons'  hearts.  Passing 
over  knight  and  noble,  he  had  touched  the  farmer,  the 
peasant,  the  petty  tradesman,  and  the  artisan,  and  turned 
the  men  of  clay  into  men  of  steel.  The  village  preacher, 
when  he  left  his  pulpit,  doffed  cap  and  cassock,  and  donned 
morion  and  steel-coat.  The  Lothian  yeoman's  household 
became  for  the  nonce  a  band  of  troopers,  who  would  cross 
swords  with  the  night  riders  of  Buccleuch.  It  was  a  ter- 
rible time,  a  time  rather  of  anarchy  than  of  defined  war, 
for  it  was  without  form  or  shape.  Yet  the  horror  of  it  was 
everywhere.  Houses  and  villages  were  burned,  and  women 
and  children  tossed  on  pike-point  into  the  flames.  Strings 
of  poor  men  were  dangled  day  after  day  from  the  walls  of 
Edinburgh  Castle.  A  word  any  way  from  Elizabeth  would 
have  ended  it,  but  that  word  Elizabeth  would  never  speak  ; 
and,  maddened  with  suffering,  the  people  half  believed  that 
she  was  feeding  the  fire  for  her  own  bad  purposes,  when  it 
was  only  that  she  would  not  make  up  her  mind  to  allow  a 
crowned  princess  to  be  dethroned.  No  earthly  influence 
could  have  held  men  true  in  such  a  trial.  The  noble  lords 
—  the  Earl  of  Morton  and  such  like  —  would  have  made 
their  own  conditions,  and  gone  with  the  rest ;  but  the  vital 
force  of  the  Scotch  nation,  showing  itself  where  it  was  least 
looked  for,  would  not  have  it  so. 


on  the  Scottish   Character.  145 

A  very  remarkable  account  of  the  state  of  the  Scotch 
commons  at  this  time  is  to  be  found  in  a  letter  of  an  Eng- 
lish emissary,  who  had  been  sent  by  Lord  Burleigh  to  see 
how  things  were  going  there.  It  was  not  merely  a  new 
creed  that  they  had  got ;  it  was  a  new  vital  power.  "  You 
would  be  astonished  to  see  how  men  are  changed  here," 
this  writer  said.  "  There  is  little  of  that  submission  to 
those  above  them  which  there  used  to  be.  The  poor  think 
and  act  for  themselves.  They  are  growing  strong,  confi- 
dent, independent.  The  farms  are  better  cultivated ;  the 
farmers  are  growing  rich.  The  merchants  at  Leith  are 
thriving,  and,  notwithstanding  the  pirates,  they  are  increas- 
ing their  ships  and  opening  a  brisk  trade  with  France." 

All  this  while  civil  war  was  raging,  and  the  flag  of  Queen 
Mary  was  still  floating  over  Edinburgh  Castle.  It  sur- 
prised the  English  ;  still  more  it  surprised  the  politicians. 
It  was  the  one  thing  which  disconcerted,  baffled,  and  finally 
ruined  the  schemes  and  the  dreams  of  Maitland.  When 
he  had  gained  the  aristocracy,  he  thought  that  he  had 
gained  every  body,  and,  as  it  turned  out,  he  had  all  his  work 
still  to  do.  The  Spaniards  did  not  come.  The  prudent 
Alva  would  not  risk  invasion  till  Scotland  at  least  was  as- 
sured. As  time  passed  on,  the  English  conspiracies  were 
discovered  and  broken  up.  The  Duke  of  Norfolk  lost  his 
head ;  the  Queen  of  Scots  was  found  to  have  been  mixed 
up  with  the  plots  to  murder  Elizabeth  ;  and  Elizabeth  at 
last  took  courage  and  recognized  James.  Supplies  of 
money  ceased  to  come  from  abroad,  and  gradually  the  tide 
turned.  The  Protestant  cause  once  more  grew  towards  the 
ascendant.  The  great  families  one  by  one  came  round 
again ;  and,  as  the  backward  movement  began,  the  Mas- 
sacre of  St.  Bartholomew  gave  it  a  fresh  and  tremendous 
impulse.  Even  the  avowed  Catholics  —  the  Hamiltons,  the 
Gordons,  the  Scotts,  the  Kers,  the  Maxwells  —  quailed  be- 
fore the  wail  of  rage  and  sorrow  which  at  that  great  horror 
rose  over  their  country.  The  Queen's  party  dwindled  away 

10 


146  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation 

to  a  handful  of  desperate  politicians,  who  still  clung  to  Ed- 
inburgh Castle.  But  Elizabeth's  "peace-makers,"  as  the 
big  English  cannon  were  called,  came  round,  at  the  Re- 
gent's request,  from  Berwick  ;  David's  Tower,  as  Knox  had 
long  ago  foretold,  "  ran  down  over  the  cliff  like  a  sandy 
brae  ; "  and  the  cause  of  Mary  Stuart  in  Scotland  was  ex- 
tinguished forever.  Poor  Grange,  who  deserved  a  better 
end,  was  hanged  at  the  Market  Cross.  Secretary  Mait- 
land,  the  cause  of  all  the  mischief,  —  the  cleverest  man,  as 
far  as  intellect  went,  in  all  Britain,  —  died  (so  later  rumor 
said)  by  his  own  hand.  A  nobler  version  of  his  end  is 
probably  a  truer  one  :  He  had  been  long  ill,  —  so  ill  that 
when  the  Castle  cannon  were  fired,  he  had  been  carried 
into  the  cellars  as  unable  to  bear  the  sound.  The  break- 
ing down  of  his  hopes  finished  him.  "The  secretary," 
wrote  some  one  from  the  spot  to  Cecil,  "  is  dead  of  grief, 
being  unable  to  endure  the  great  hatred  which  all  this  peo- 
ple bears  towards  him."  It  would  be  well  if  some  compe- 
tent man  would  write  a  life  of  Maitland,  or  at  least  edit  his 
papers.  They  contain  by  far  the  clearest  account  of  the 
inward  movements  of  the  time  ;  and  he  himself  is  one  of 
the  most  tragically  interesting  characters  in  the  cycle  of 
the  Reformation  history. 

"With  the  fall  of  the  Castle,  then,  but  not  till  then,  it  be- 
came clear  to  all  men  that  the  Reformation  would  hold  its 
ground.  It  was  the  final  trampling  out  of  the  fire  which 
for  five  years  had  threatened  both  England  and  Scotland 
with  flames  and  ruin.  For  five  years,  —  as  late  certainly 
as  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  —  those  who  under- 
stood best  the  true  state  of  things,  felt  the  keenest  misgiv- 
ings how  the  event  would  turn.  That  things  ended  as  they 
did  was  due  to  the  spirit  of  the  Scotch  commons.  There 
was  a  moment  when,  if  they  had  given  way,  all  would  have 
gone,  perhaps  even  to  Elizabeth's  throne.  They  had  passed 
for  nothing;  they  had  proved  to  be  every  thing;  had 
proved  —  the  ultimate  test  in  human  things  —  to  be  the 


on  the  /Scottish  Character.  147 

power  which  could  hit  the  hardest  blows,  and  they  took 
rank  accordingly.  The  creed  began  now  in  good  earnest 
to  make  its  way  into  hall  and  castle  ;  but  it  kept  the  form 
which  it  assumed  in  the  first  hours  of  its  danger  and  trial, 
and  never  after  lost  it.  Had  the  aristocracy  dealt  sincerely 
with  things  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  business,  again  I  say 
the  democratic  element  in  the  Kirk  might  have  been  soft- 
ened or  modified.  But  the  Protestants  had  been  trifled 
with  by  their  own  natural  leaders.  Used  and  abused  by 
Elizabeth,  despised  by  the  worldly  intelligence  and  power 
of  the  times,  they  triumphed  after  all,  and,  as  a  natural 
consequence,  they  set  their  own  mark  and  stamp  upon  the 
fruits  of  the  victory. 

The  question  now  is,  what  has  the  Kirk  so  established 
done  for  Scotland  ?  Has  it  justified  its  own  existence  ? 
Briefly,  we  might  say,  it  has  continued  its  first  function  as 
the  guardian  of  Scottish  freedom.  But  that  is  a  vague 
phrase,  and  there  are  special  accusations  against  the  Kirk 
and  its  doctrines  which  imply  that  it  has  cared  for  other 
things  than  freedom.  Narrow,  fanatical,  dictatorial,  intru- 
sive, superstitious,  a  spiritual  despotism,  the  old  priesthood 
over  again  with  a  new  face  —  these  and  other  such  epithets 
and  expressions  we  have  heard  often  enough  applied  to  it 
at  more  than  one  stage  of  its  history.  "Well,  I  suppose 
that  neither  the  Kirk  nor  any  thing  else  of  man's  making 
is  altogether  perfect.  But  let  us  look  at  the  work  which 
lay  before  it  when  it  had  got  over  its  first  perils.  Scotch 
patriotism  succeeded  at  last  in  the  object  it  had  so  passion- 
ately set  its  heart  upon.  It  sent  a  king  at  last  of  the 
Scotch  blood  to  England,  and  a  new  dynasty ;  and  it  never 
knew  peace  or  quiet  after.  The  Kirk  had  stood  between 
James  Stuart  and  his  kingcraft.  He  hated  it  as  heartily 
as  did  his  mother ;  and,  when  he  got  to  England,  he  found 
people  there  who  told  him  it  would  be  easy  to  destroy  it, 
and  he  found  the  strength  of  a  fresh  empire  to  back  him 
in  trying  to  do  it.  To  have  forced  prelacy  upon  Scotland 


148  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation 

would  have  been  to  destroy  the  life  out  of  Scotland. 
Thrust  upon  them  by  force,  it  would  have  been  no  more 
endurable  than  Popery.  They  would  as  soon,  perhaps 
sooner,  have  had  what  the  Irish  call  the  "  rale  thing  "  back 
again.  The  political  freedom  of  the  country  was  now 
wrapped  up  in  the  Kirk ;  and  the  Stuarts  were  perfectly 
well  aware  of  that,  and  for  that  very  reason  began  their 
crusade  against  it. 

And  now,  suppose  the  Kirk  had  been  the  broad,  liberal, 
philosophical,  intellectual  thing  which  some  people  think  it 
ought  to  have  been,  how  would  it  have  fared  in  that  cru- 
sade ;  how  altogether  would  it  have  encountered  those  sur- 
plices of  Archbishop  Laud  or  those  dragoons  of  Claver- 
house  ?  It  is  hard  to  lose  one's  life  for  a  "  perhaps  ; "  and 
philosophical  belief  at  the  bottom  means  a  "  perhaps,"  and 
nothing  more.  For  more  than  half  the  seventeenth  cen- 
turj,  the  battle  had  to  be  fought  out  in  Scotland,  which  in 
reality  was  the  battle  between  liberty  and  despotism  ;  and 
where,  except  in  an  intense,  burning  conviction  that  they 
were  maintaining  God's  cause  against  the  devil,  could  the 
poor  Scotch  people  have  found  the  strength  for  the  une- 
qual struggle  which  was  forced  upon  them  ?  Toleration  is 
a  good  thing  in  its  place ;  but  you  cannot  tolerate  what 
will  not  tolerate  you,  and  is  trying  to  cut  your  throat.  En- 
lightenment you  cannot  have  enough  of,  but  it  must  be 
true  enlightenment,  which  sees  a  thing  in  all  its  bearings. 
In  these  matters  the  vital  questions  are  not  always  those 
which  appear  on  the  surface  ;  and  in  the  passion  and  reso- 
lution of  brave  and  noble  men  there  is  often  an  inarticu- 
late intelligence  deeper  than  what  can  be  expressed  in 
words.  Action  sometimes  will  hit  the  mark,  when  the 
spoken  word  either  misses  it  or  is  but  half  the  truth.  On 
such  subjects,  and  with  common  men,  latitude  of  mind 
means  weakness  of  mind.  There  is  but  a  certain  quantity 
of  spiritual  force  in  any  man.  Spread  it  over  a  broad 
surface,  the  stream  is  shallow  and  languid ;  narrow  the 


on  the  Scottish   Character.  149 

channe^  and  it  becomes  a  driving  force.  Each  may  be 
well  at  its  own  time.  The  mill-race  which  drives  the 
water-wheel  is  dispersed  in  rivulets  over  the  meadow  at  its 
foot.  The  Covenanters  fought  the  fight  and  won  the  vic- 
tory, and  then,  and  not  till  then,  came  the  David  Humes 
with  their  essays  on  miracles,  and  the  Adam  Smiths  with 
their  political  economies,  and  steam-engines,  and  railroads, 
and  philosopical  institutions,  and  all  the  other  blessed  or 
unblessed  fruits  of  liberty. 

But  we  may  go  further.  Institutions  exist  for  men,  not 
men  for  institutions ;  and  the  ultimate  test  of  any  system 
of  politics,  or  body  of  opinions,  or  form  of  belief,  is  the 
effect  produced  on  the  conduct  and  condition  of  the  peo- 
ple who  live  and  die  under  them.  Now,  I  am  not  here  to 
speak  of  Scotland  of  the  present  day.  That,  happily,  is 
no  business  of  mine.  We  have  to  do  here  with  Scotland 
before  the  march  of  intellect ;  with  Scotland  of  the  last 
two  centuries  ;  with  the  three  or  four  hundred  thousand 
families,  who  for  half  a  score  of  generations  believed  sim- 
ply and  firmly  in  the  principles  of  the  Reformation,  and 
walked  in  the  ways  of  it. 

Looked  at  broadly,  one  would  say  they  had  been  an 
eminently  pious  people.  It  is  part  of  the  complaint  of 
modern  philosophers  about  them,  that  religion,  or  super- 
stition, or  whatever  they  please  to  call  it,  had  too  much  to 
do  with  their  daily  lives.  So  far  as  one  can  look  into  that 
commonplace  round  of  things  which  historians  never  tell 
us  about,  there  have  rarely  been  seen  in  this  world  a  set  of 
people  who  have  thought  more  about  right  and  wrong,  and 
the  judgment  about  them  of  the  upper  powers.  Long- 
headed, thrifty  industry,  —  a  sound  hatred  of  waste,  impru- 
dence, idleness,  extravagance,  —  the  feet  planted  firmly 
upon  the  earth,  —  a  conscientious  sense  that  the  worldly 
virtues  are,  nevertheless,  very  necessary  virtues,  that  with- 
out these,  honesty  for  one  thing  is  not  possible,  and  that 
without  honesty  no  other  excellence,  religious  or  moral,  ia 


150  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation 

worth  any  thing  at  all,  —  this  is  the  stuff  of  which'Scotch 
life  was  made,  and  very  good  stuff  it  is.  It  has  been  called 
gloomy,  austere,  harsh,  and  such  other  epithets.  A  gifted 
modern  writer  has  favored  us  lately  with  long  strings  of 
extracts  from  the  sermons  of  Scotch  divines  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, taking  hard  views  of  human  short-comings  and  their 
probable  consequences,  and  passing  hard  censures  upon 
the  world  and  its  amusements.  Well,  no  doubt  amusement 
is  a  very  good  thing ;  but  I  should  rather  infer  from  the 
vehemence  and  frequency  of  these  denunciations  that  the 
people  had  not  been  in  the  habit  of  denying  themselves 
too  immoderately ;  and,  after  all,  it  is  no  very  hard  charge 
against  those  teachers  that  they  thought  more  of  duty  than 
of  pleasure.  Sermons  always  exaggerate  the  theoretic 
side  of  things  ;  and  the  most  austere  preacher,  when  he  is 
out  of  the  pulpit,  and  you  meet  him  at  the  dinner-table, 
becomes  singularly  like  other  people.  We  may  take  cour- 
age, I  think :  we  may  believe  safely  that  in  those  minister- 
ridden  days,  men  were  not  altogether  so  miserable;  we 
may  hope  that  no  large  body  of  human  beings  have  for 
any  length  of  time  been  too  dangerously  afraid  of  enjoy- 
ment. Among  other  good  qualities,  the  Scots  have  been 
distinguished  for  humor  —  not  for  venomous  wit,  but  for 
kindly,  genial  humor,  which  half  loves  what  it  laughs  at  — 
and  this  alone  shows  clearly  enough  that  those  to  whom  it 
belongs  have  not  looked  too  exclusively  on  the  gloomy  side 
of  the  world.  I  should  rather  say  that  the  Scots  had  been 
an  unusually  happy  people.  Intelligent  industry,  the  hon- 
est doing  of  daily  work,  with  a  sense  that  it  must  be  done 
well,  under  penalties  ;  the  necessaries  of  life  moderately 
provided  for ;  and  a  sensible  content  with  the  situation 
of  life  in  which  men  are  born  —  this  through  the  week, 
and  at  the  end  of  it  the  "  Cottar's  Saturday  Night " —  the 
homely  family,  gathered  reverently  and  peacefully  together, 
and  irradiated  with  a  sacred  presence.  Happiness !  such 
happiness  as  we  human  creatures  are  likely  to  know  upon 
this  world,  will  be  found  there,  if  anywhere. 


on  the  /Scottish   Character.  151 

The  author  of  the  "  History  of  Civilization "  makes  a 
naive  remark  in  connection  with  this  subject.  Speaking  of 
the  other  country,  which  he  censures  equally  with  Scotland 
for  its  slavery  to  superstition,  he  says  of  the  Spaniards 
that  they  are  a  well-natured,  truthful,  industrious,  temper- 
ate, pious  people,  innocent  in  their  habits,  affectionate  in 
their  families,  full  of  humor,  vivacity,  and  shrewdness,  yet 
that  all  this  "  has  availed  them  nothing  "  —  "  has  availed 
them  nothing,"  that  is  his  expression  —  because  they  are 
loyal,  because  they  are  credulous,  because  they  are  con- 
tented, because  they  have  not  apprehended  the  first  com- 
mandment of  the  new  covenant :  "  Thou  shalt  get  on  and 
make  money,  and  better  thy  condition  in  life ; "  because, 
therefore,  they  have  added  nothing  to  the  scientific  knowl- 
edge, the  wealth,  and  the  progress  of  mankind.  Without 
these,  it  seems,  the  old-fashioned  virtues  avail  nothing. 
They  avail  a  great  deal  to  human  happiness.  Applied 
science,  and  steam,  and  railroads,  and  machinery,  enable  an 
ever-increasing  number  of  people  to  live  upon  the  earth  ; 
but  the  happiness  of  those  people  remains,  so  far  as  I  know, 
dependent  very  much  on  the  old  conditions.  I  should 
be  glad  to  believe  that  the  new  views  of  things  will  pro- 
duce effects  upon  the  character  in  the  long  run  half  so 
beautiful. 

There  is  much  more  to  say  on  this  subject,  were  there 
time  to  say  it,  but  I  will  not  trespass  too  far  upon  your  pa- 
tience ;  and  I  would  gladly  have  ended  here,  had  not  the 
mention  of  Spain  suggested  one  other  topic,  which  I  should 
not  leave  unnoticed.  The  Spain  of  Cervantes  and  Don 
Quixote  was  the  Spain  of  the  Inquisition.  The  Scotland 
of  Knox  and  Melville  was  the  Scotland  of  the  witch  trials 
and  witch  burnings.  The  belief  in  witches  was  common 
to  all  the  world.  The  prosecution  and  punishment  of  the 
poor  creatures  was  more  conspicuous  in  Scotland  when  the 
Kirk  was  most  powerful ;  in  England  and  New  England, 
when  Puritan  principles  were  also  dominant  there.  It  is 


152  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation 

easy  to  understand  the  reasons.  Evil  of  all  kinds  was 
supposed  to  be  the  work  of  a  personal  devil ;  and  in  the 
general  horror  of  evil,  this  particular  form  of  it,  in  which 
the  devil  was  thought  especially  active,  excited  the  most 
passionate  detestation.  Thus,  even  the  best  men  lent 
themselves  unconsciously  to  the  most  detestable  cruelty. 
Knox  himself  is  not  free  from  reproach.  A  poor  woman 
was  burned  at  St.  Andrews  when  he  was  living  there,  and 

O  ' 

when  a  word  from  him  would  have  saved  her.  It  remains 
a  lesson  to  all  time,  that  goodness,  though  the  indispensable 
adjunct  to  knowledge,  is  no  substitute  for  it ;  and  when 
conscience  undertakes  to  dictate  beyond  its  province,  the 
result  is  only  the  more  monstrous. 

It  is  well  that  we  should  look  this  matter  in  the  face  ; 
and  as  particular  stories  leave  more  impression  than  gen- 
eral statements,  I  will  mention  one,  perfectly  well  authen- 
ticated, which  I  take  from  the  official  report  of  the  pro- 
ceedings :  —  Towards  the  end  of  1593  there  was  trouble  in 
the  family  of  the  Earl  of  Orkney.  His  brother  laid  a  plot 
to  murder  him,  and  was  said  to  have  sought  the  help  of  a 
"  notorious  witch  "  called  Alison  Balfour.  When  Alison 
Balfour's  life  was  looked  into,  no  evidence  could  be  found 
connecting  her  either  with  the  particular  offense  or  with 
witchcraft  in  general ;  but  it  was  enough  in  these  matters 
to  be  accused.  She  swore  she  was  innocent ;  but  her  guilt 
was  only  held  to  be  aggravated  by  perjury.  She  was  tor- 
tured again  and  again.  Her  legs  were  put  in  the  caschi- 
laws,  —  an  iron  frame  which  was  gradually  heated  till  it 
burned  into  the  flesh,  —  but  no  confession  could  be  wrung 
from  her.  The  caschilaws  failed  utterly,  and  something 
else  had  to  be  tried.  She  had  a  husband,  a  son,  and  a 
daughter,  a  child  seven  years  old.  As  her  own  sufferings 
did  not  work  upon  her,  she  might  be  touched,  perhaps,  by 
the  sufferings  of  those  who  were  dear  to  her.  They  were 
brought  into  court,  and  placed  at  her  side ;  and  the  hus- 
band first  was  placed  in  the  "  long  irons  "  —  some  accursed 


on  the  Scottish  Character.  153 

instrument;  I  know  not  what.  Still  the  devil  did  not 
yield,  She  bore  this  ;  and  her  son  was  next  operated  on, 
The  boy's  legs  were  set  in  "  the  boot,"  —  the  iron  boot 
you  may  have  heard  of.  The  wedges  were  driven  in, 
which,  when  forced  home,  crushed  the  very  bone  and  mar- 
row.  Fifty-seven  mallet  strokes  were  delivered  upon  the 
wedges.  Yet  this,  too,  failed.  There  Was  no  confession 
yet.  So,  last  of  all,  the  little  daughter  Was  taken.  There 
Was  a  machine  called  the  piniwinkies  —  a  kind  of  thumb- 
screw, which  brought  blood  from  under  the  finger-nailsj 
with  a  pain  successfully  terrible.  These  things  were  ap- 
plied to  the  poor  child's  hands,  and  the  mother's  constancy 
broke  down,  and  she  said  she  would  admit  any  thing  they 
wished.  She  confessed  her  witchcraft, —  so  tried,  she 
Would  have  confessed  to  the  seven  deadly  sins,  —  and  then 
she  was  burned,  recalling  her  confession)  and  with  her  last 
breath  protesting  her  innocence. 

It  is  due  to  the  intelligence  of  the  time  to  admit  that 
after  this  her  guilt  was  doubted,  and  such  vicarious  means 
of  extorting  confession  do  not  seem  to  have  been  tried 
again.  Yet  the  men  who  inflicted  these  tortures  would 
have  borne  them  all  themselves  sooner  than  have  done 
any  act  which  they  consciously  knew  to  be  wrong.  They 
did  not  know  that  the  instincts  of  humanity  were  more 
sacred  than  the  logic  of  theology,  and  in  fighting  against 
the  devil  they  Were  themselves  doing  the  devil's  work. 
"We  should  not  attempt  to  apologize  for  these  things,  still 
less  to  forget  them.  No  martyrs  ever  suffered  to  instill  into 
mankind  a  more  wholesome  lesson  — more  wholesome,  or 
one  more  hard  to  learn.  The  more  conscientious  men  are, 
the  more  difficult  it  is  for  them  to  understand  that  in  their 
most  cherished  convictions,  when  they  pass  beyond  the 
limits  where  the  wise  and  good  of  all  sorts  agree,  they  may 
be  the  victims  of  mere  delusion.  Yet,  after  all,  and  hap- 
pily, such  cases  were  but  few,  and  affected  but  lightly  the 
general  condition  of  the  people. 


154         The  Influence  of  the  Reformation,  etc. 

The  student  running  over  the  records  of  other  times 
finds  certain  salient  things  standing  out  in  frightful  promi- 
nence. He  concludes  that  the  substance  of  those  times 
was  made  up  of  the  matters  most  dwelt  on  by  the  annalist. 
He  forgets  that  the  things  most  noticed  are  not  those  of 
every-day  experience,  but  the  abnormal,  the  extraordinary, 
the  monstrous.  The  exceptions  are  noted  down,  the  com- 
mon and  usual  are  passed  over  in  silence.  The  philosophic 
historian,  studying  hereafter  this  present  age,  in  which  we 
are  ourselves  living,  may  say  that  it  was  a  time  of  unex- 
ampled prosperity,  luxury,  and  wealth ;  but  catching  at 
certain  horrible  murders  which  have  lately  disgraced  our 
civilization,  may  call  us  a  nation  of  assassins.  It  is  to  in- 
vert the  pyramid  and  stand  it  on  its  point.  The  same  sys- 
tem of  belief  which  produced  the  tragedy  which  I  have 
described,  in  its  proper  province  as  the  guide  of  ordinary 
life,  has  been  the  immediate  cause  of  all  that  is  best  and 
greatest  in  Scottish  character. 


THE 

PHILOSOPHY    OF    CATHOLICISM.1 


NOT  long  ago  I  heard  a  living  thinker  of  some  eminence 
say  that  he  considered  Christianity  to  have  been  a  misfor- 
tune. Intellectually,  he  said,  it  was  absurd ;  and  practi- 
cally, it  was  an  offense,  over  which  he  stumbled.  It  would 
have  been  far  better  for  mankind,  he  thought,  if  they  could 
have  kept  clear  of  superstition,  and  followed  on  upon  the 
track  of  the  Grecian  philosophy.  So  little  do  men  care  to 
understand  the  conditions  which  have  made  them  what 
they  are,  and  which  has  created  for  them  that  very  wisdom 
in  which  they  themselves  are  so  contented.  But  it  is 
strange,  indeed,  that  a  person  who  could  deliberately  adopt 
such  a  conclusion  should  trouble  himself  any  more  to  look 
for  truth.  If  a  mere  absurdity  could  make  its  way  out  of 
a  little  fishing  village  in  Galilee,  and  spread  through  the 
whole  civilized  world ;  if  men  are  so  pitiably  silly,  that  in 
an  age  of  great  mental  activity  their  strongest  thinkers 
should  have  sunk  under  an  abortion  of  fear  and  folly, 
should  have  allowed  it  to  absorb  into  itself  whatever  of 
heroism,  of  devotion,  self-sacrifice,  and  moral  nobleness 
there  was  among  them  ;  surely  there  were  nothing  better 
for  a  wise  man  than  to  make  the  best  of  his  time,  and  to 
crowd  what  enjoyment  he  can  find  into  it,  sheltering  him- 
self in  a  very  disdainful  Pyrrhonism  from  all  care  for  man- 
kind or  for  their  opinions.  For  what  better  test  of  truth 
1  From  the  Leader,  1851. 


156  TJie  Philosophy  of  Catholicism. 

have  we  than  the  ablest  men's  acceptance  of  it  ?  and  if  the 
ablest  men  eighteen  centuries  ago  deliberately  accepted 
what  is  now  too  absurd  to  reason  upon,  what  right  have  we 
to  hope  that  with  the  same  natures,  the  same  passions,  the 
same  understandings,  no  better  proof  against  deception, 
we,  like  they,  are  not  entangled  in  what,  at  the  close  of 
another  era,  shall  seem  again  ridiculous  ?  The  scoff  of 
Cicero  at  the  divinity  of  Liber  and  Ceres  (bread  and  wine) 
may  be  translated  literally  by  the  modern  Protestant ;  and 
the  sarcasms  which  Clement  and  Tertullian  flung  at  the 
Pagan  creed,  the  modern  skeptic  returns  upon  their  own. 
Of  what  use  is  it  to  destroy  an  idol,  when  another,  or  the 
same  in  another  form,  takes  immediate  possession  of  the 
vacant  pedestals  ? 

I  ^hall  not  argue  with  the  extravagant  hypothesis  of 
my  friend.  In  the  opinion  even  of  Goethe,  who  was  not 
troubled  with  credulity,  the  human  race  can  never  attain  to 
any  thing  higher  than  Christianity,  if  we  mean  by  Christi- 
anity the  religion  which  was  revealed  to  the  world  in  the 
teaching  and  the  life  of  its  Founder.  But  even  the  more 

o 

limited  reprobation  by  our  own  Reformers  of  the  creed  of 
mediaeval  Europe  is  not  more  just  or  philosophical. 

Ptolemy  was  not  perfect,  but  Newton  had  been  a  fool  if 
he  had  scoffed  at  Ptolemy.  Newton  could  not  have  been 
without  Ptolemy,  nor  Ptolemy  without  the  Chaldees ;  and 
as  it  is  with  the  minor  sciences,  so  far  more  is  it  with  the 
science  of  sciences  —  the  science  of  life,  which  has  grown 
through  all  the  ages  from  the  beginning  of  time.  We  speak 
of  the  errors  of  the  past.  "VYe,  with  this  glorious  present 
which  is  opening  on  us,  we  shall  never  enter  on  it,  we  shall 
never  understand  it,  till  we  have  learnt  to  see  in  that  pasty 
not  error,  but  installment  of  truth,  hard-fought-for  truth, 
wrung  out  with  painful  and  heroic  effort.  The  promised 
land  is  smiling  before  us,  but  we  may  not  pass  over  into  the 
possession  of  it  while  the  bones  of  our  fathers  who  labored 
through  the  wilderness  lie  bleaching  on  the  sands,  or  a 


Tlie  Philosophy  of  Catholicism.  157 

prey  to  the  unclean  birds.  We  must  gather  their  relics 
and  bury  them,  and  sum  up  their  labors,  and  inscribe  the 
record  of  their  actions  on  their  tombs  as  an  honorable 
epitaph.  If  Catholicism  really  is  passing  away,  if  it  has 
clone  its  work,  and  if  what  is  left  of  it  is  now  holding  us 
back  from  better  things,  it  is  not  for  our  bitterness  but  for 
our  affectionate  acknowledgment ;  not  for  our  heaping  con- 
tempt on  what  it  is,  but  for  our  reverend  and  patient  exami- 
nation of  what  it  has  been,  that  it  will  be  content  to  bid  us 
farewell,  and  give  us  God-speed  on  our  further  journey. 

In  the  Natural  History  of  Religions,  certain  broad  phe- 
nomena perpetually  repeat  themselves ;  they  rise  in  the 
highest  thought  extant  at  the  time  of  their  origin ;  the  con- 
clusions of  philosophy  settle  into  a  creed ;  art  ornaments 
it,  devotion  consecrates  it,  time  elaborates  it.  It  grows 
through  a  long  series  of  generations  into  the  heart  and 
habits  of  the  people  ;  and  so  long  as  no  disturbing  cause 
interferes,  or  so  long  as  the  idea  at  the  centre  of  it  sur- 
vives, a  healthy,  vigorous,  natural  life  shoots  beautifully  up 
out  of  the  intellectual  root.  But  at  last  the  idea  becomes 
obsolete ;  the  numbing  influence  of  habit  petrifies  the  spirit 
in  the  outside  ceremonial,  while  new  questions  arise  among 
the  thinkers,  and  ideas  enter  into  new  and  unexplained 
relations.  The  old  formula  will  not  serve,  but  new  formulae 
are  tardy  in  appearing ;  and  habit  and  superstition  cling  to 
the  past,  and  policy  vindicates  it,  and  statecraft  upholds  it 
forcibly  as  serviceable  to  order,  till,  from  the  combined 
action  of  folly,  and  woiidliness,  and  ignorance,  the  once- 
beautiful  symbolism  becomes  at  last  no  better  than  "  a 
whited  sepulchre  full  of  dead  men's  bones  and  all  unclean- 
ness."  So  it  is  now.  So  it  was  in  the  era  of  the  Csesars, 
out  of  which  Christianity  arose  ;  and  Christianity,  in  the 
form  which  it  assumed  at  the  close  of  the  Arian  contro- 
versy, was  the  deliberate  solution  which  the  most  powerful 
intellects  of  that  day  could  offer  of  the  questions  which 
had  grown  with  the  growth  of  mankind,  and  on  which 
Paganism  had  suffered  shipwreck. 


158  The  Philosophy  of  Catholicism. 

Paganism,  as  a  creed,  was  entirely  physical.  When 
Paganism  rose,  men  had  not  begun  to  reflect  upon  them- 
selves, or  the  infirmities  of  their  own  nature.  The  bad 
man  was  a  bad  man  —  the  coward,  a  coward  —  the  liar,  a 
liar  —  individually  hateful  and  despicable  ;  but  in  hating 
and  despising  such  unfortunates,  the  old  Greeks  were 
satisfied  to  have  felt  all  that  it  was  necessary  to  feel  about 
them  ;  and  how  such  a  phenomenon  as  a  bad  man  came  to 
exist  in  this  world,  they  scarcely  cared  to  inquire.  There 
is  no  evil  spirit  in  the  mythology  as  an  antagonist  of  the 
gods.  There  is  the  Erinnys  as  the  avenger  of  monstrous 
villainies  ;  there  is  a  Tartarus  where  the  darkest  criminals 
suffer  eternal  tortures.  But  Tantalus  and  Ixion  are  suffer- 
ing for  enormous  crimes,  to  which  the  small  wickedness 
of  common  men  offers  no  analogy.  Moreover,  these  and 
other  such  stories  are  only  curiously  ornamented  myths, 
representing  physical  phenomena.  But  with  Socrates  a 
change  came  over  philosophy ;  a  sign  —  perhaps  a  cause  — 
of  the  decline  of  the  existing  religion.  The  study  of  man 
superseded  the  study  of  Nature  :  a  purer  Theism  came  in 
with  the  higher  ideal  of  perfection,  and  sin  and  depravity 
at  once  assumed  an  importance,  the  intensity  of  which 
made  every  other  question  insignificant.  How  man  could 
know  the  good  and  yet  choose  the  evil ;  how  God  could  be 
all  pure  and  almighty,  and  yet  evil  have  broken  into  his 
creation  —  these  were  the  questions  Avhich  thenceforth  were 
the  perplexity  of  philosophic  speculation. 

Whatever  difficulty  there  might  be  in  discovering  how 
evil  came  to  be,  the  leaders  of  all  the  sects  agreed  at  last 
upon  the  seat  of  it.  "Whether  matter  was  eternal,  as  Aris- 
totle thought,  or  created,  as  Plato  thought,  both  Plato  and 
Aristotle  were  equally  satisfied  that  the  secret  of  all  the 
short-comings  in  this  world  lay  in  the  imperfection,  reluc- 
tancy,  or  inherent  grossness  of  this  impracticable  substance. 
God  would  have  every  thing  perfect,  but  the  nature  of  the 
element  in  which  He  worked  in  some  way  defeated  his 


The  Philosophy  of  Catholicism.  159 

purpose.  Death,  disease,  decay,  clung  necessarily  to  every 
thing  which  was  created  out  of  it ;  and  pain,  and  want,  and 
hunger,  and  suffering.  Worse  than  all,  the  spirit  in  its 
material  body  was  opposed  and  borne  down,  its  aspirations 
crushed,  its  purity  tainted  by  the  passions  and  appetites  of 
its  companion  —  the  fleshly  lusts  which  waged  perpetual 
war  against  the  soul. 

Matter  was  the  cause  of  evil,  and  thenceforth  the  ques- 
tion was  how  to  conquer  matter,  or,  at  least,  how  to  set  free 
the  spirit  from  its  control. 

The  Greek  language  and  the  Greek  literature  spread 
behind  the  march  of  Alexander ;  but  as  his  generals  could 
only  make  their  conquests  permanent  by  largely  accepting 
the  eastern  manners,  so  philosophy  could  only  make  good 
its  ground  by  becoming  itself  orientalized.  The  one  pure 
and  holy  God  whom  Plato  had  painfully  reasoned  out  for 
himself  had  existed  from  immemorial  time  in  the  traditions 
of  the  Jews ;  while  the  Persians,  who  had  before  taught 
the  Jews  at  Babylon  the  existence  of  an  independent  c .  11 
being,  now  had  him  to  offer  to  the  Greeks  as  their  account 
of  the  difficulties  which  had  perplexed  Socrates.  Seven 
centuries  of  struggle,  and  many  hundred  thousand  folios, 
were  the  results  of  the  remarkable  fusion  which  followed, 
Out  of  these  elements,  united  in  various  proportions,  rose 
successively  the  Alexandrian  philosophy,  the  Hellenists,  the 
Therapeutae,  those  strange  Essene  communists,  with  the 
innumerable  sects  of  Gnostic  or  Christian  heretics.  Finally, 
the  battle  was  limited  to  the  two  great  rivals,  under  one  or 
other  of  which  the  best  of  the  remainder  had  ranged  them- 
selves —  Manicheism  and  Catholic  Christianity  :  Maniche- 
ism  in  which  the  Persian  —  Catholicism  in  which  the  Jewish 
—  element  most  preponderated.  It  did  not  end  till  the 
close  of  the  fifth  century,  and  it  ended  then  rather  by  arbi- 
tration than  by  a  decided  victory  which  either  side  could 
claim.  The  Church  has  yet  to  acknowledge  how  large  a 
portion  of  its  enemy's  doctrines  it  incorporated  through  the 


160  The  Philosophy  of  Catholicism. 

mediation  of  Augustine  before  the  field  was  surrendered  to 
it  Let  us  trace  something  of  the  real  bearings  of  this 
section  of  the  world's  oriental  history,  which  to  so  many 
moderns  seems  no  better  than  an  idle  fighting  over  words 
and  straws. 

Facts  witnessing  so  clearly  that  the  especial  strength  of 
evil  lay,  as  the  philosophers  had  seen,  in  matter,  it  was  so 
far  a  conclusion  which  both  Jew  and  Persian  were  ready  to 
accept ;  the  naked  Aristotelic  view  of  it  being  most  ac- 
ceptable  to  the  Persian,  the  Platonic  to  the  Hellenistic 
Jew.  But  the  purer  theology  of  the  Jew  forced  him  to 
look  for  a  solution  of  the  question  which  Plato  had  left 
doubtful,  and  to  explain  how  evil  had  crept  into  matter. 
He  could  not  allow  that  what  God  had  created  could  be  of 
its  own  nature  imperfect.  God  made  it  very  good  ;  some 
other  cause  had  broken  in  to  spoil  it.  Accordingly,  as 
before  he  had  reduced  the  independent  Arimanes,  whose 
existence  he  had  learnt  at  Babylon,  into  a  subordinate 
spirit ;  so  now,  not  questioning  the  facts  of  disease,  of 
death,  of  pain,  or  of  the  infirmity  of  the  flesh  which  the 
natural  strength  of  the  spirit  was  unable  to  resist,  he  ac- 
counted for  them  under  the  supposition  that  the  first  man 
had  deliberately  sinned,  and  by  his  sin  had  brought  a  curse 
upon  the  whole  material  earth,  and  upon  all  which  was 
fashioned  out  of  it.  The .  earth  was  created  pure  and 
lovely  —  a  garden  of  delight,  loading  itself  of  its  own  free 
accord  with  fruit  and  flower,  and  every  thing  most  exquisite 
and  beautiful.  No  bird  or  beast  of  prey  broke  the  eternal 
peace  which  reigned  over  its  hospitable  surface.  In  calm 
and  quiet  intercourse,  the  leopard  lay  down  by  the  kid,  the 
lion  browsed  beside  the  ox,  and  the  corporeal  frame  of  man, 
knowing  neither  decay  nor  death,  nor  unruly  appetite,  nor 
any  change  or  infirmity,  was  pure  as  the  immortal  sub- 
stance of  the  unfallen  angels. 

But  with  the  fatal  apple  all  this  fair  scene  passed  away 
find  creation  as  it  seemed  was  hopelessly  and  irretrievably 


The  Philosophy  of  Catholicism.  161 

ruined.  Adam  sinned  —  no  matter  how  :  he  sinned ;  the 
sin  was  the  one  terrible  fact ;  moral  evil  was  brought  into 
the  world  by  the  only  creature  who  was  capable  of  com- 
mitting it.  Sin  entered  in,  and  death  by  sin  ;  death  and 
disease,  storm  and  pestilence,  earthquake  and  famine. 
The  imprisoned  passions  of  the  wild  animals  were  let  loose, 
and  earth  and  air  became  full  of  carnage ;  worst  of  all, 
man's  animal  nature  came  out  in  gigantic  strength  —  the 
carnal  lusts,  unruly  appetites,  jealousies,  hatreds,  rapines, 
and  murders ;  and  then  the  law,  and  with  it,  of  course, 
breaches  of  the  law,  and  sin  on  sin.  The  seed  of  Adam 
was  infected  in  the  animal  change  which  had  passed  over 
Adam's  person,  and  every  child,  therefore,  thenceforth 
naturally  engendered  in  his  posterity,  was  infected  with  the 
curse  which  he  had  incurred.  Every  material  organization 
thenceforward  contained  in  itself  the  elements  of  its  own 
destruction,  and  the  philosophic  conclusions  of  Aristotle 
were  accepted  and  explained  by  theology.  Already,  in 
the  popular  histories,  those  who  were  infected  by  disease 
were  said  to  be  bound  by  Satan  ;  madness  was  a  "  posses- 
sion" by  the  Evil  Spirit;  and  the  whole  creation,  from 
Adam  till  Christ,  groaned  and  travailed  under  Satan's 
power.  The  noble  nature  in  man  still  made  itself  felt ; 
but  it  was  a  slave  when  it  ought  to  command.  It  might 
will  to  obey  the  higher  law,  but  the  law  in  the  members 
was  over-strong  for  it  and  bore  it  down.  This  was  the 
body  of  death  which  philosophy  detected  but  could  not 
explain,  and  from  which  Catholicism  now  came  forward 
with  its  magnificent  promise  of  deliverance. 

The  carnal  doctrine  of  the  sacraments,  which  Protest- 
ants are  compelled  to  acknowledge  to  have  been  taught  as 
fully  in  the  early  Church  as  it  is  now  taught  by  the  Roman 
Catholics,  has  long  been  the  stumbling-block  to  modern 
thought.  It  was  the  very  essence  of  the  original  creed. 
Unless  the  body  could  be  purified,  the  soul  could  not  be 
saved ;  because,  from  the  beginning,  soul  and  flesh  were  one 
n 


162  The  Philosophy  of  Catholicism. 

man  ami  inseparable.  Without  his  flesh,  man  was  not,  or 
would  cease  to  be.  But  the  natural  organization  of  the 
flesh  was  infected  with  evil,  and  unless  organization  could 
begin  again  from  a  new  original,  no  pure  material  sub- 
stance could  exist  at  all.  He,  therefore,  by  whom  God 
had  first  made  the  world,  entered  into  the  womb  of  the 
Virgin  in  the  form  (if  I  may  with  reverence  say  so)  of  a 
new  organic  cell ;  and  around  it,  through  the  virtue  of  his 
creative  energy,  a  material  body  grew  again  of  the  sub- 
stance of  his  mother,  pure  of  taint  and  clean  as  the  first 
body  of  the  first  man  was  clean  when  it  passed  out  under 
his  hand  in  the  beginning  of  all  things.  In  Him  thus  won- 
derfully born  was  the  virtue  which  was  to  restore  the  lost 
power  of  mankind.  He  came  to  redeem  man ;  and,  there- 
fore, He  took  a  human  body,  and  He  kept  it  pure  through 
a  human  life,  till  the  time  came  when  it  could  be  applied 
to  its  marvelous  purpose.  He  died,  and  then  appeared 
what  was  the  nature  of  a  material  human  body  when  freed 
from  the  limitations  of  sin.  The  grave  could  not  hold  it, 
neither  was  it  possible  that  it  should  see  corruption.  It 
was  real,  for  the  disciples  were  allowed  to  feel  and  handle 
it.  He  ate  and  drank  with  them  to  assure  their  senses. 
But  space  had  no  power  over  it,  nor  any  of  the  material 
obstacles  which  limit  an  ordinary  power.  He  willed,  and 
his  body  obeyed.  He  was  here,  He  was  there.  He  was 
visible,  He  was  invisible.  He  was  in  the  midst  of  his  dis- 
ciples and  they  saw  Him,  and  then  He  was  gone  whither 
who  could  tell  ?  At  last  He  passed  away  to  heaven ;  but 
while  in  heaven,  He  was  still  on  earth.  His  body  became 
the  body  of  his  Church  on  earth,  not  in  metaphor,  but  in 
fact !  —  his  very  material  body,  in  which  and  by  which  the 
faithful  would  be  saved.  His  flesh  and  blood  were  thence- 
forth to  be  their  food.  They  were  to  eat  it  as  they  would 
eat  ordinary  meat.  They  were  to  take  it  into  their  system, 
a  pure  material  substance,  to  leaven  the  old  natural  sub- 
stance and  assimilate  it  to  itself  As  they  fed  upon  it  it  would 


The  Philosophy  of  Catholicism.  163 

grow  into  them,  and  it  would  become  their  own  real  body. 
Flesh  grown  in  the  old  way  was  the  body  of  death,  but  the 
flesh  of  Christ  was  the  life  of  the  world,  over  which  death 
had  no  power.  Circumcision  availed  nothing,  nor  uncir- 
cumcision  —  but  a  new  creature  —  and  this  new  creature, 
which  the  child  first  put  on  in  baptism,  was  born  again  into 
Christ  of  water  and  the  Spirit.  In  the  Eucharist  he  was 
fed  and  sustained,  and  went  on  from  strength  to  strength  ; 
and  ever  as  the  nature  of  his  body  changed,  being  able  to 
render  a  more  complete  obedience,  he  would  at  last  pass 
away  to  God  through  the  gate  of  the  grave,  and  stand 
holy  and  perfect  in  the  presence  of  Christ.  Christ  had 
indeed  been  ever  present  with  him ;  but  because  Avhile  life 
lasted  some  particles  of  the  old  Adam  would  necessarily 
cling  to  every  man,  the  Christian's  mortal  eye  on  earth 
could  not  see  Him.  Hedged  in  by  "his  muddy  vesture  of 
decay,"  his  eyes,  like  the  eyes  of  the  disciples  of  Emmaus, 
are  holden,  and  only  in  faith  he  feels  Him.  But  death, 
which  till  Christ  had  died  had  been  the  last  victory  of  evil, 
in  virtue  of  his  submission  to  it,  became  its  own  destroyer, 
for  it  had  power  only  over  the  tainted  particles  of  the  old 
substance,  and  there  was  nothing  needed  but  that  these 
should  be  washed  away,  and  the  elect  would  stand  out  at 
once  pure  and  holy,  clothed  in  immortal  bodies,  like  refined 
gold,  the  redeemed  of  God. 

The  being  who  accomplished  a  work  so  vast  —  a  work 
compared  to  which  the  first  creation  appears  but  a  trifling 
difficulty  —  what  could  He  be  but  God?  God  Himself! 
Who  but  God  could  have  wrested  his  prize  from  a  power 
which  half  the  thinking  world  believed  to  be  his  coequal 
and  coeternal  adversary?  He  was  God.  He  was  man 
also,  for  He  was  the  second  Adam  —  the  second  starting- 
point  of  human  growth.  He  was  virgin  born,  that  no 
original  impurity  might  infect  the  substance  which  He  as- 
sumed; and  being  Himself  sinless,  He  showed  in  the 
nature  of  his  person,  after  his  resurrection,  what  the  ma- 


164  The  Philosophy  of  CatJiolicism. 

terial  body  would  have  been  in  all  of  us  except  for  sin, 
and  what  it  Avill  be  when,  after  feeding  on  it  in  its  purity, 
the  bodies  of  each  of  us  are  transfigured  after  its  likeness. 
Here  was  the  secret  of  the  spirit  which  set  St.  Simeon  on 
his  pillar  and  sent  St.  Anthony  to  the  tombs  —  of  the 
night  watches,  the  weary  fasts,  the  penitential  scourgings, 
the  life-long  austerities  which  have  been  alternately  the 
glory  and  the  reproach  of  the  mediaeval  saints.  They 
desired  to  overcome  their  animal  bodies,  and  anticipate  in 
life  the  work  of  death  in  uniting  themselves  more  com- 
pletely to  Christ  by  the  destruction  of  the  flesh,  which  lay 
as  a  veil  between  themselves  and  Him. 

Such  I  believe  to  have  been  the  central  idea  of  the 
beautiful  creed  which,  for  1500  years,  tuned  the  heart  and 
formed  the  mind  of  the  noblest  of  mankind.  From  this 
centre  it  radiated  out  and  spread,  as  time  went  on,  into  the 
full  circle  of  human  activity,  flinging  its  own  philosophy 
and  its  own  peculiar  grace  over  the  common  details  of  the 
common  life  of  all  of  us.  Like  the  seven  lamps  before  the 
Throne  of  God,  the  seven  mighty  angels,  and  the  seven 
stars,  the  seven  sacraments  shed  over  mankind  a  never- 
ceasing  stream  of  blessed  influences.  The  priests,  a  holy 
order  set  apart  and  endowed  with  mysterious  power,  rep- 
resented Christ  and  administered  his  gifts.  Christ,  in  his 
twelfth  year,  was  presented  in  the  Temple,  and  first  en- 
tered on  his  Father's  business;  and  the  baptized  child, 
when  it  has  grown  to  an  age  to  become  conscious  of  its 
vow  and  of  its  privilege,  again  renews  it  in  full  knowledge 
of  what  it  undertakes,  and  receives  again  sacramentally  a 
fresh  gift  of  grace  to  assist  it  forward  on  its  way.  In  ma- 
turity it  seeks  a  companion  to  share  its  pains  and  pleas- 
ures ;  and,  again,  Christ  is  present  to  consecrate  the  union. 
Marriage,  which,  outside  the  Church,  only  serves  to  perpet- 
uate the  curse  and  bring  fresh  inheritors  of  misery  into  the 
world,  He  made  holy  by  his  presence  at  Cana,  and  chose  it 
as  the  symbol  to  represent  his  own  mystic  union  with  his 


The  Philosophy  of  Catholicism.  165 

Church.  Even  saints  cannot  live  without  at  times  some  spot 
adhering  to  them.  The  atmosphere  in  which  we  breathe 
and  move  is  soiled,  and  Christ  has  anticipated  our  wants. 
Christ  did  penance  forty  days  in  the  wilderness,  not  to  sub- 
due his  own  flesh  —  for  that  which  was  already  perfect  did 
not  need  subduing  —  but  to  give  to  penance  a  cleansing  vir- 
tue to  serve  for  our  daily  or  our  hourly  ablution.  Christ 
consecrates  our  birth  ;  Christ  throws  over  us  our  baptismal 
robe  of  pure  unsullied  innocence.  He  strengthens  us  as  we 
go  forward.  He  raises  us  when  we  fall.  He  feeds  us  with 
the  substance  of  his  own  most  precious  body.  In  the  per- 
son of  his  minister  he  does  all  this  for  us,  in  virtue  of  that 
which  in  his  own  person  He  actually  performed  when  a 
man  living  on  this  earth.  Last  of  all,  when  time  is  draw- 
ing to  its  close  with  us  —  when  life  is  past,  when  the  work 
is  done,  and  the  dark  gate  is  near,  beyond  which  the  gar- 
den of  an  eternal  home  is  waiting  to  receive  us,  his  tender 
care  has  not  forsaken  us.  He  has  taken  away  the  sting 
of  death,  but  its  appearance  is  still  terrible  ;  and  He  will 
not  leave  us  without  special  help  at  our  last  need.  He 
tried  the  agony  of  the  moment ;  and  He  sweetens  the  cup 
for  us  before  we  drink  it.  We  are  dismissed  to  the  grave 
with  our  bodies  anointed  with  oil,  which  He  made  holy  in 
his  last  anointing  before  his  passion,  and  then  all  is  over. 
We  lie  clown  and  seem  to  decay  —  to  decay  —  but  not 
all.  Our  natural  body  decays,  being  the  last  remains  of 
the  infected  matter  which  we  have  inherited  from  Adam  ; 
but  the  spiritual  body,  the  glorified  substance  which  has 
made  our  life,  and  is  our  real  body  as  we  are  in  Christ,  that 
can  never  decay,  but  passes  off  into  the  kingdom  which  is 
prepared  for  it ;  that  other  world  where  there  is  no  sin,  and 
God  is  all  in  all ! 


A  PLEA 

FOB  THE 

FREE  DISCUSSION  OF  THEOLOGICAL  DIFFICULTIES.* 


IN  the  ordinary  branches  of  human  knowledge  or  in- 
quiry, the  judicious  questioning  of  received  opinions  has 
been  regarded  as  the  sign  of  scientific  vitality,  the  princi- 
ple of  scientific  advancement,  the  very  source  and  root  of 
healthy  progress  and  growth.  If  medicine  had  been  regu- 
lated three  hundred  years  ago  by  Act  of  Parliament ;  if 
there  had  been  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  Physic,  and  every 
licensed  practitioner  had  been  compelled,  under  pains  and 
penalties,  to  compound  his  drugs  by  the  prescriptions  of 
Henry  the  Eighth's  physician,  Doctor  Butts,  it  is  easy  to 
conjecture  in  what  state  of  health  the  people  of  this  coun- 
try would  at  present  be  found.  Constitutions  have  changed 
with  habits  of  life,  and  the  treatment  of  disorders  has 
changed  to  meet  the  new  conditions.  New  diseases  have 
shown  themselves  of  which  Doctor  Butts  had  no  cog- 
nizance ;  new  continents  have  given  us  plants  with  medi- 
cinal virtues  previously  unknown ;  new  sciences,  and  even 
the  mere  increase  of  recorded  experience,  have  -added  a 
thousand  remedies  to  those  known  to  the  acre  of  the  Tu- 

O 

dors.  If  the  College  of  Physicians  had  been  organized 
into  a  board  of  orthodoxy,  and  every  novelty  of  treatment 
had  been  regarded  as  a  crime  against  society,  which  a  law 
had  been  established  to  punish,  the  hundreds  who  die  an- 

1  Fraser's  Jfagazine,  1863. 


Free  Discussion  of  Theological  Difficulties.     167 

nually  from  preventible  causes  would  have  been  thousands 
and  tens  of  thousands. 

Astronomy  is  the  most  perfect  of  the  sciences.  The 
accuracy  of  the  present  theory  of  the  planetary  movements 
is  tested  daily  and  hourly  by  the  most  delicate  experiments, 
and  the  Legislature,  if 'it  so  pleased,  might  enact  the  first 
principles  of  these  movements  into  a  statute,  without  dan- 
ger of  committing  the  law  of  England  to  falsehood.  Yet, 
if  the  Legislature  were  to  venture  on  any  such  paternal 
procedure,  in  a  few  years  gravitation  itself  would  be 
called  in  question,  and  the  whole  science  would  wither  un- 
der the  fatal  shadow.  There  are  many  phenomena  still 
unexplained  to  give  plausibility  to  skepticism ;  there  are 
others  more  easily  formularized  for  working  purposes  in 
the  language  of  Hipparchus  ;  and  there  would  be  reaction- 
ists who  would  invite  us  to  return  to  the  safe  convictions 
of  our  forefathers.  What  the  world  has  seen  the  world 
may  see  again  ;  and  were  it  once  granted  that  astronomy 
were  something  to  be  ruled  by  authority,  new  popes  would 
imprison  new  Galileos ;  the  knowledge  already  acquired 
would  be  strangled  in  the  cords  which  were  intended  to 
keep  it  safe  from  harm,  and,  deprived  of  the  free  air  on 
which  its  life  depends,  it  would  dwindle  and  die. 

A  few  years  ago,  an  Inspector  of  Schools  —  a  Mr.  Jel- 
linger  Symonds  —  opening,  perhaps  for  the  first  time,  an 
elementary  book  on  astronomy,  came  on  something  which 
he  conceived  to  be  a  difficulty  in  the  theory  of  lunar  mo- 
tion. His  objection  was  on  the  face  of  it  plausible.  The 
true  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  are  universally  the  op- 
posite of  the  apparent  motions.  Mr.  Symonds  conceived 
that  the  moon  could  not  revolve  on  its  axis,  because  the  same 
side  of  it  was  continually  turned  towards  the  earth  j  and 
because  if  it  were  connected  with  the  earth  by  a  rigid 
bar  —  which,  as  he  thought,  would  deprive  it  of  power  of 
rotation  —  the  relative  aspects  of  the  two  bodies  would  re- 
main unchanged.  He  sent  his  views  to  the  "  Times."  He 


168  A  Plea  for  tht  Free   Discussion 

appealed  to  the  common  sense  of  the  world,  and  common 
sense  seemed  to  be  on  his  side.  The  men  of  science  were 
of  course  right ;  but  a  phenomenon,  not  entirely  obvious, 
had  been  hitherto  explained  in  language  which  the  general 
reader  could  not  readily  comprehend.  A  few  words  of 
elucidation  cleared  up  the  confusion.  We  do  not  recollect 
whether  Mr.  Symonds  was  satisfied  or  not ;  but  most  of  us 
who  had  before  received  what  the  men  of  science  told  us 
with  an  unintelligent  and  languid  assent,  were  set  thinking 
for  ourselves,  and,  as  a  result  of  the  discussion,  exchanged 
a  confused  idea  for  a  clear  one. 

It  was  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  true  claims  of  au- 
thority and  of  the  value  of  open  inquiry.  The  ignorant 
man  has  not  as  good  a  right  to  his  own  opinion  as  the 
instructed  man.  The  instructed  man,  however  right  he 
may  be,  must  not  deliver  his  conclusions  as  axioms,  and 
merely  insist  that  they  are  true.  The  one  asks  a  question, 
the  other  answers  it,  and  all  of  us  are  the  better  for  the 
business. 

Now,  let  us  suppose  the  same  thing  to  have  happened, 
when  the  only  reply  to  a  difficulty  was  an  appeal  to  the 
Astronomer-Royal,  where  the  rotation  of  the  moon  was 
an  article  of  salvation  decreed  by  the  law  of  the  land,  and 
where  all  persons  admitted  to  hold  office  under  the  State 
were  required  to  subscribe  to  it.  The  Astronomer-Royal  — 
as  it  was,  if  we  remember  right,  he  was  a  little  cross  at  Mr. 
Symonds's  presumption  —  would  have  brought  an  action 
against  him  in  the  Court  of  Arches ;  Mr.  Symonds  would 
have  been  deprived  of  his  inspectorship  —  for,  of  course, 
he  would  have  been  obstinate  in  his  heresy  ;  the  world  out- 
side would  have  had  an  antecedent  presumption  that  truth 
lay  with  the  man  who  Avas  making  sacrifices  for  it,  and  that 
there  was  little  to  be  said  in  the  way  of  argument  for  what 
could  not  stand  without  the  help  of  the  law.  Every  body 
could  understand  the  difficulty ;  not  every  body  would 
have  taken  the  trouble  to  attend  to  the  answer.  Mr.  Sy- 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  169 

monds  would  have  been  a  Colenso,  and  a  good  many  of  us 
would  have  been  convinced  in  our  secret  hearts  that  the 
moon  as  little  turned  on  its  axis  as  the  drawing-room 
table. 

As  it  is  in  idea  essential  to  a  reverence  for  truth  to  be- 
lieve in  its  capacity  for  self-defense,  so  practically,  in  every 
subject  except  one,  errors  are  allowed  free  room  to  express 
themselves,  and  the  liberty  of  opinion  which  is  the  life  of 
knowledge,  as  surely  becomes  the  death  of  falsehood.  A 
method  —  the  soundness  of  which  is  so  evident  that  to 
argue  in  favor  of  it  is  almost  absurd  —  might  be  expected 
to  have  been  applied  as  a  matter  of  course  to  the  one  sub- 
ject where  mistake  is  supposed  to  be  fatal,  —  where  to 
come  to  wrong  conclusions  is  held  to  be  a  crime  for  which 
the  Maker  of  the  universe  has  neither  pardon  nor  pity. 
Yet  many  reasons,  not  difficult  to  understand,  have  long 
continued  to  exclude  theology  from  the  region  where  free 
discussion  is  supposed  to  be  applicable.  That  so  many 
persons  have  a  personal  interest  in  the  maintenance  of  par- 
ticular views,  would  of  itself  be  fatal  to  fair  argument. 
Though  they  know  themselves  to  be  right,  yet  right  is  not 
enough  for  them  unless  there  is  might  to  support  it,  and 
those  who  talk  most  of  faith  show  least  that  they  possess  it. 
But  there  are  deeper  and  more  subtle  objections.  The 
theologian  requires  absolute  certainty,  and  there  are  no  ab- 
solute certainties  in  science.  The  conclusions  of  science 
are  never  more  than  in  a  high  degree  probable ;  they  are 
no  more  than  the  best  explanations  of  phenomena  which 
are  attainable  in  the  existing  state  of  knowledge.  The 
most  elementary  laws  are  called  laws  only  in  courtesy. 
They  are  generalizations  which  are  not  considered  likely  to 
require  modification,  but  which  no  one  pretends  to  be,  in 
the  nature  of  the  cause,  exhaustively  and  ultimately  true. 
As  phenomena  become  more  complicated,  and  the  data  for 
the  interpretation  of  them  more  inadequate,  the  explana- 
tions oflered  are  put  forward  hypothetically,  and  are  o-rad- 


170  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

uated  by  the  nature  of  the  evidence.  Such  modest  hesita- 
tion is  altogether  unsuited  to  the  theologian,  whose  certainty 
increases  with  the  mystery  and  obscurity  of  his  matter ;  his 
convictions  admit  of  no  qualification ;  his  truth  is  sure  as 
the  axioms  of  geometry ;  he  knows  what  he  believes,  for 
he  has  the  evidence  in  his  heart ;  if  he  inquire,  it  is  with  a 
foregone  conclusion,  and  serious  doubt  with  him  is  sin.  It 
is  in  vain  to  point  out  to  him  the  thousand  forms  of  opin- 
ions for  each  of  which  the  same  internal  witness  is  affirmed. 
The  Mayo  peasant  crawling  with  his  bare  knees  over  the 
splintered  rocks  on  Croagh  Patrick,  the  nun  prostrate  be- 
fore the  image  of  St.  Mary,  the  Methodist  in  the  spasmodic 
ecstasy  of  a  revival,  alike  are  conscious  of  emotions  in 
themselves  which  correspond  to  their  creed :  the  more  pas- 
sionate, or,  as  some  would  say,  the  more  unreasoning  the 
piety,  the  louder  and  more  clear  is  the  voice  within.  But 
these  varieties  are  no  embarrassment  to  the  theologian. 
Pie  finds  no  fault  with  the  method  which  is  identical  in 
them  all.  Whatever  the  party  to  which  he  himself  belongs, 
he  is  equally  satisfied  that  he  alone  has  the  truth  ;  the  rest 
are  under  illusions  of  Satan. 

Again,  we  hear  —  or  we  used  to  hear  when  the  High 
Church  party  were  more  formidable  than  they  are  at  pres- 
ent —  much  about  "  the  right  of  private  judgment" 
"  Why,"  the  eloquent  Protestant  would  say,  "  should  I  pin 
my  faith  upon  the  Church  ?  the  Church  is  but  a  congrega- 
tion of  fallible  men,  no  better  able  to  judge  than  I  am  ;  I 
have  a  right  to  my  own  opinion."  It  sounds  like  a  paradox 
to  say  that  free  discussion  is  interfered  with  by  a  cause 
which,  above  all  others,  would  have  been  expected  to  further 
it ;  but  this  in  fact  has  been  the  effect,  because  it  tends  to 
remove  the  grounds  of  theological  belief  beyond  the  prov- 
ince of  argument.  No  one  talks  of  "  a  right  of  private 
judgment"  in  any  thing  but  religion  ;  no  one  but  a  fool 
insists  on  his  "  right  to  his  own  opinion  "  with  his  lawyer 
or  his  doctor  Able  men  who  have  given  their  time  to 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  171 

special  subjects,  are  authorities  upon  those  subjects  to  be 
listened  to  with  deference,  and  the  ultimate  authority  at 
any  given  time  is  the  collective  general  sense  of  the  wisest 
men  living  in  the  department  to  which  they  belong.  The 
utmost  "  right  of  private  judgment "  which  any  body  claims 
in  such  cases,  is  the  choice  of  the  physician  to  whom  he 
will  trust  his  body,  or  of  the  counsel  to  whom  he  wilt  com- 
mit the  conduct  of  his  cause.  The  expression,  as  it  is 
commonly  used,  implies  a  belief  that,  in  matters  of  religion, 
the  criteria  of  truth  are  different  in  kind  from  what  prevail 
elsewhere,  and  the  efforts  which  have  been  made  to  brihg 
such  a  notion  into  harmony  with  common  sense  and  com- 
mon subjects  have  not  been  the  least  successful.  The  High 
Church  party  used  to  say,  as  a  point  against  the  Evangel- 
icals, that  either  "the  right  of  private  judgment"  meant 
nothing,  or  it  meant  that  a  man  had  a  right  to  be  in  the 
wrong.  "  No,"  said  a  writer  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review," 
"  it  means  only  that  if  a  man  chooses  to  be  in  the  wrong, 
no  one  else  has  a  right  to  interfere  with  him.  A  man  has 
no  right  to  get  drunk  in  his  own  house,  but  the  policeman 
may  not  force  a  way  into  his  house  and  prevent  him."  The 
illustration  fails  of  its  purpose. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Evangelicals  never  contemplated 
a  wrong  use  of  the  thing  ;  they  meant  merely  that  they  had 
a  right  to  their  own  opinions  as  against  the  Church.  They 
did  not  indeed  put  forward  their  claim  quite  so  nakedly  ; 
they  made  it  general,  as  sounding  less  invidious ;  but  no- 
body ever  heard  an  Evangelical  admit  a  High  Churchman's 
right  to  be  a  High  Churchman,  or  a  Catholic's  right  to  be 
a  Catholic. 

But,  secondly,  society  has  a  most  absolute  right  to  pre- 
vent all  manner  of  evil,  —  drunkenness,  and  the  rest  of  it, 
if  it  can,  —  only,  in  doing  so,  society  must  not  use  means 
which  would  create  a  greater  evil  than  it  would  remedy. 
As  a  man  can  by  no  possibility  be  doing  any  thing  but 
most  foul  wrong  to  himself  in  getting  drunk,  society  does 


172  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

him  no  wrong,  but  rather  does  him  the  greatest  benefit,  if 
it  can  possibly  keep  him  sober  ;  and  in  the  same  way,  since 
a  false  belief  in  serious  matters  is  among  the  greatest  of 
misfortunes,  so  to  drive  it  out  of  a  man,  by  the  whip,  if  it 
cannot  be  managed  by  persuasion,  is  an  act  of  brotherly 
love  and  affection,  provided  the  belief  really  and  truly  is 
false,  and  you  have  a  better  to  give  him  in  the  place  of  it. 
The  question  is  not  what  to  do,  but  merely  "  how  to  do  it ; '' 
although  Mr.  Mill,  in  his  love  of  "  liberty,"  thinks  other- 
wise. Mr.  Mill  demands  for  every  man  a  right  to  say  out 
his  convictions  in  plain  language,  whatever  they  may  be ; 
and  so  far  as  he  means  that  there  should  be  no  Act  of  Par- 
liament to  prevent  him,  he  is  perfectly  just  in  what  he  says. 
But  when  Mr.  Mill  goes  from  Parliament  to  public  opin- 
ion, —  when  he  lays  down  as  a  general  principle  that  the 
free  play  of  thought  is  unwholesomely  interfered  with  by 
society,  —  he  would  take  away  the  sole  protection  which  we 
possess  from  the  inroads  of  any  kind  of  folly.  His  dread 
of  tyranny  is  so  great,  that  he  thinks  a  man  better  off  with 
a  false  opinion  of  his  own  than  with  a  right  opinion  in- 
flicted upon  him  from  without ;  while,  for  our  own  part,  we 
should  be  grateful  for  tyranny  or  for  any  thing  else  which 
would  perform  so  useful  an  office  for  us. 

Public  opinion  may  be  unjust  at  particular  times  and  on 
particular  subjects ;  we  believe  it  to  be  both  unjust  and 
unwise  on  the  matter  of  which  we  are  at  present  speaking ; 
but.  on  the  whole,  it  is  like  the  ventilation  of  a  house, 
which  keeps  the  air  pure.  Much  in  this  world  has  to  be 
taken  for  granted,  and  we-  cannot  be  forever  arguing  over 
our  first  principles.  If  a  man  persists  in  talking  of  what 
he  does  not  understand,  he  is  put  down  ;  if  he  sports  loose 
views  on  morals  at  a  decent  dinner  party,  the  better  sort 
of  people  fight  shy  of  him,  and  he  is  not  invited  again  \.  if 
he  profess  himself  a  Buddhist  or  a  Mahometan,  it  is  as- 
sumed that  he  has  not  adopted  those  beliefs  on  serious  con- 
viction, but  rather  in  willful  levity  and  eccentricity  which 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  173 

does  not  deserve  to  be  tolerated.  Men  have  no  right  to 
make  themselves  bores  and  nuisances ;  and  the  common 
sense  of  mankind  inflicts  wholesome  inconveniences  on 
those  who  carry  their  "  right  of  private  judgment"  to  any 
such  extremities.  It  is  a  check,  the  same  in  kind  as  that 
which  operates  so  wholesomely  in  the  sciences.  Mere  folly 
is  extinguished  in  contempt ;  objections  reasonably  urged 
obtain  a  hearing  and  are  reasonably  met.  New  truths, 
ifter  encountering  sufficient  opposition  to  test  their  value, 
nake  their  way  into  general  reception. 

A  further  cause  which  has  operated  to  prevent  theology 
from  obtaining  the  benefit  of  free  discussion  is  the  inter- 
pretation popularly  placed  upon  the  constitution  of  the 
Church  Establishment.  For  fifteen  centuries  of  its  exist- 
ence, the  Christian  Church  was  supposed  to  be  under  the 
immediate  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  miraculously 
controlled  its  decisions,  and  precluded  the  possibility  of 
error.  This  theory  broke  down  at  the  Reformation,  but  it 
left  behind  it  a  confused  sense  that  theological  truth  was 
in  some  way  different  from  other  truth  ;  and,  partly  on 
grounds  of  public  policy,  partly  because  it  was  supposed  to 
have  succeeded  to  the  obligations  and  the  rights  of  the 
Papacy,  the  State  took  upon  itself  to  fix  by  statute  the 
doctrines  which  should  be  taught  to  the  people.  The  dis- 
tractions created  by  divided  opinions  were  then  dangerous. 
Individuals  did  not  hesitate  to  ascribe  to  themselves  the 
infallibility  which  they  denied  to  the  Church.  Every  body 
was  intolerant  upon  principle,  and  was  ready  to  cut  the 
throat  of  an  opponent  whom  his  arguments  had  failed  to 
convince.  The  State,  while  it  made  no  pretensions  to  Di- 
vine guidance,  was  compelled  to  interfere  in  self-protection ; 
and  to  keep  the  peace  of  the  realm,  and  to  prevent  the 
nation  from  tearing  itself  in  pieces,  a  body  of  formulas  was 
enacted,  for  the  time  broad  and  comprehensive,  within 
which  opinion  might  be  allowed  convenient  latitude,  while 
forbidden  to  pass  beyond  the  border. 


174  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

It  might  have  been  thought  that  in  abandoning  for  itself 
and  formally  denying  to  the  Church  its  pretensions  to  im 
munity  from  error,  the  State  could  not  have  intended  to 
bind  the  conscience.     When  this  or  that  law  is  passed,  the 
subject  is  required  to  obey  it,  but  he  is  not  required  to  ap- 
prove of  the  law  as  just.    The  Prayer-book  and  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles,  so  far  as  they  are  made  obligatory  by  act  of 
Parliament,  are  as  much  laws  as  any  other  statute.     They 
are  a  rule  to  conduct ;  it  is  not  easy  to  see  why  they  should 
be  more  ;  it  is  not  easy  to  see  why  they  should  have  been 
supposed  to  deprive  clergymen  of  a  right  to  their  opinions, 
or  to  forbid  discussion  of  their  contents.     The  judge  is  not 
forbidden  to  ameliorate  the  law  which  he  administers.     If 
in  discharge  of  his  duty  he  has  to  pronounce  a  sentence 
which  he  declares  at  the  same  time  that  he  thinks  unjust, 
no  indignant  public  accuses  him  of  dishonesty,  or  requires 
him  to  resign  his  office.     The  soldier  is  asked  no  questions 
as  to  the  legitimacy  of  the  war  on  which  he  is  sent  to  fight ; 
nor  need  he  throw  up  his  commission  if  he  think  the  quar- 
rel a  bad  one.     Doubtless,  if  a  law  was  utterly  iniquitous, 
if  a  war  was  unmistakably  wicked,  honorable  men  might 
feel  uncertain  what  to  do,  and  would  seek  some  other  pro- 
fession rather  than   continue   instruments   of  evil.      But 
within  limits,  and  in  questions  of  detail,  where  the  service 
is  generally  good  and  honorable,  we  leave  opinion  its  free 
play,  and  exaggerated  scrupulousness  would   be  folly  or 
something  worse.     Somehow  or  other,  however,  this  whole- 
some freedom  is  not  allowed  to  the  clergyman.     The  idea 
of  absolute  inward  belief  has  been  substituted  for  that  of 
obedience  ;  and  the  man  who,  in  taking  orders,  signs  the 
Articles  and  accepts  the  Prayer-book,  does   not   merely 
undertake  to  use  the  services  in  the  one,  and  abstain  from 
contradicting  to  his  congregation  the  doctrines  contained  in 
the  other ;  but  he  is  held  to  promise  what  no  honest  man, 
without  presumption,  can  undertake  to  promise,  —  that  he 
will  continue  to  think  to  the  end  of  his  life  as  he  thinks 
when  he  makes  his  engagement. 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  175 

It  is  said  that  if  his  opinions  change  he  may  resign,  and 
retire  into  lay  communion.  We  are  not  prepared  to  say 
that  either  the  Convocation  of  1562,  or  the  Parliament 
which  afterwards  indorsed  its  proceedings,  knew  exactly 
what  they  meant,  or  did  not  mean ;  but  it  is  quite  clear 
that  they  did  not  contemplate  the  alternative  of  a  clergy- 
man's retirement.  If  they  had,  they  would  have  provided 
means  by  which  he  could  have  abandoned  his  orders,  and 
not  have  remained  committed  for  life  to  a  profession  from 
which  he  could  not  escape.  If  the  popular  theory  of  sub- 
scription be  true,  and  the  Articles  are  articles  of  belief, 
a  reasonable  human  being,  when  little  more  than  a  boy, 
pledges  himself  to  a  long  series  of  intricate  and  highly  diffi- 
cult propositions  of  abstruse  divinity.  He  undertakes  never 
to  waver  or  doubt ;  never  to  allow  his  mind  to  be  shaken, 
whatever  the  weight  of  argument  or  evidence  brought  to 
bear  upon  him.  That  is  to  say,  he  promises  to  do  what  no 
man  living  has  a  right  to  promise  to  do.  He  is  doing,  on 
the  authority  of  Parliament,  precisely  what  the  Church  of 
Rome  required  him  to  do  on  the  authority  of  a  Council. 

If  a  clergyman,  in  trouble  amidst  the  abstruse  subjects 
with  which  he  has  to  deal,  or  unable  to  reconcile  some  new- 
discovered  truth  of  science  with  the  established  formulas, 
puts  forward  his  perplexities ;  if  he  ventures  a  doubt  of  the 
omniscience  of  the  statesmen  and  divines  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  which  they  themselves  disowned,  there  is  an  in- 
stant cry  to  have  him  stifled,  silenced,  or  trampled  down  ; 
and  if  no  longer  punished  in  life  and  limb,  to  have  him 
deprived  of  the  means  on  which  life  and  limb  can  be  sup- 
ported, while  with  ingenious  tyranny  he  is  forbidden  to 
maintain  himself  by  any  other  occupation. 

So  far  have  we  gone  in  this  direction,  that,  when  the 
u  Essays  and  Reviews  "  appeared,  it  was  gravely  said  —  and 
said  by  men  who  had  no  professional  antipathy  to  them  — 
that  the  writers  had  broken  their  faith.  Laymen  were  free 
to  say  what  they  pleased  on  such  subjects ;  clergymen  were 


176  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

the  hired  exponents  of  the  established  opinions,  and  were 
committed  to  them  in  thought  and  word.  It  was  one  more 
anomaly  where  there  were  enough  already.  To  say  that 
the  clergy,  who  are  set  apart  to  study  a  particular  subject, 
are  to  be  the  only  persons  unpermitted  to  have  an  inde- 
pendent opinion  upon  it,  is  like  saying  that  lawyers  must 
take  no  part  in  the  amendment  of  the  statute-book ;  that 
engineers  must  be  silent  upon  mechanism ;  and  if  an  im- 
provement is  wanted  in  the  art  of  medicine,  physicians  may 
have  nothing  to  say  to  it. 

These  causes  would,  perhaps,  have  been  insufficient  to 
repress  free  inquiry,  if  there  had  been  on  the  part  of  the 
really  able  men  among  us  a  determination  to  break  the  ice  ; 
in  other  words,  if  theology  had  preserved  the  same  com- 
manding interest  for  the  more  powerful  minds  with  which 
it  affected  them  three  hundred  years  ago.  But  on  the  one 
hand,  a  sense,  half-serious,  half-languid,  of  the  hopeless- 
ness of  the  subject  has  produced  an  indisposition  to  meddle 
with  it ;  on  the  other,  there  has  been  a  creditable  reluct- 
ance to  disturb  by  discussion  the  minds  of  the  uneducated 
or  half-educated,  to  whom  the  established  religion  is  simply 
an  expression  of  the  obedience  which  they  owe  to  Almighty 
God,  on  the  details  of  which  they  think  little,  and  are  there- 
fore unconscious  of  its  difficulties,  while  in  general  it  is  the 
source  of  all  that  is  best  and  noblest  in  their  lives  and 
actions. 

This  last  motive  no  doubt  deserves  respect,  but  the  force 
which  it  once,  possessed  it  possesses  no  longer.  The  uncer- 
tainty which  once  affected  only  the  more  instructed  extends 
now  to  all  classes  of  society.  A  superficial  crust  of  agree- 
ment, wearing  thinner  day  by  day,  is  undermined  every- 
where by  a  vague  misgiving  ;  and  there  is  an  unrest  which 
will  be  satisfied  only  when  the  sources  of  it  are  probed  to 
the  core.  The  Church  authorities  repeat  a  series  of  phrases 
which  they  are  pleased  to  call  answers  to  objections  ;  they 
treat  the  most  serious,  grounds  of  perplexity  as  if  they  were 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  177 

puerile  and  trifling ;  while  it  is  notorious  that  for  a  century 
past  extremely  able  men  have  either  not  known  what  to  say 
about  them,  or  have  not  said  what  they  thought.  On  the 
Continent  the  peculiar  English  view  has  scarcely  a  single 
educated  defender.  Even  in  England  the  laity  keep  their 
judgment  in  suspense,  or  remain  warily  silent. 

"  Of  what  religion  are  you,  Mr.  Rogers  ?  "  said  a  lady 
once. 

"  What  religion,  madam  ?  I  am  of  the  religion  of  all 
sensible  men." 

"  And  what  is  that  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  All  sensible  men,  madam,  keep  that  to  themselves." 

If  Mr.  Rogers  had  gone  on  to  explain  himself,  he  would 
have  said,  perhaps,  that  where  the  opinions  of  those  best 
able  to  judge  are  divided,  the  questions  at  issue  are  doubt- 
ful. Reasonable  men  who  are  unable  to  give  them  special 
attention  withhold  their  judgment,  while  those  who  are  able, 
form  their  conclusions  with  diffidence  and  modesty.  But 
theologians  will  not  tolerate  diffidence ;  they  demand  abso- 
lute assent,  and  will  take  nothing  short  of  it ;  and  they 
affect,  therefore,  to  drown  in  foolish  ridicule  whatever 
troubles  or  displeases  them.  The  Bishop  of  Oxford  talks 
in  the  old  style  of  punishment.  The  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury refers  us  to  Usher  as  our  guide  in  Hebrew  chro- 
nology. The  objections  of  the  present  generation  of 
"  infidels,"  he  says,  are  the  same  which  have  been  refuted 
again  and  again,  and  are  such  as  a  child  might  answer. 
The  young  man  just  entering  upon  the  possession  of  his 
intellect,  with  a  sense  of  responsibility  for  his  belief,  and 
more  anxious  for  truth  than  for  success  in  life,  finds,  when 
he  looks  into  the  matter,  that  the  archbishop  has  altogether 
misrepresented  it ;  that  in  fact,  like  other  official  persons, 
he  had  been  using  merely  a  stereotyped  form  of  words,  to 
which  he  attached  no  definite  meaning.  The  words  are 
repeated  year  after  year,  but  the  enemies  refuse  to  be  exor- 
cised. They  come  and  come  again,  from  Spinoza  and  Les- 
12 


178  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

sing  to  Strauss  and  Kenan.  The  theologians  have  resolved 
no  single  difficulty ;  they  convince  no  one  who  is  not  con- 
vinced already ;  and  a  Colenso,  coming  fresh  to  the  subject 
with  no  more  than  a  year's  study,  throws  the  Church  of 
England  into  convulsions. 

If  there  were  any  real  danger  that  Christianity  would 
cease  to  be  believed,  it  would  be  no  more  than  a  fulfillment 
of  prophecy.  The  state  in  which  the  Son  of  Man  would 
find  the  world  at  his  coming  he  did  not  say  would  be  a 
state  of  faith.  But  if  that  dark  time  is  ever  literally  to 
come  upon  the  earth,  there  are  no  present  signs  of  it.  The 
creed  of  eighteen  centuries  is  not  about  to  fade  away  like 
an  exhalation,  nor  are  the  new  lights  of  science  so  ex- 
hilarating that  serious  persons  can  look  with  comfort  to 
exchanging  one  for  the  other.  Christianity  has  abler  ad- 
vocates than  its  professed  defenders,  in  those  many  quiet 
and  humble  men  and  women  who  in  the  light  of  it  and  the 
strength  of  it  live  holy,  beautiful,  and  self-denying  lives. 
The  God  that  answers  by  fire  is  the  God  whom  mankind 
will  acknowledge  ;  and  so  long  as  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit 
continue  to  be  visible  in  charity,  in  self-sacrifice,  in  those 
graces  which  raise  human  creatures  above  themselves,  and 
invest  them  with  that  beauty  of  holiness  which  only  religion 
confers,  thoughtful  persons  will  remain  convinced  that  with 
them,  in  some  form  or  other,  is  the  secret  of  truth.  The 
body  will  not  thrive  on  poison,  or  the  soul  on  falsehood  ; 
and  as  the  vital  processes  of  health  are  too  subtle  for  sci- 
ence to  follow ;  as  we  choose  our  food,  not  by  the  most 
careful  chemical  analysis,  but  by  the  experience  of  its 
effects  upon  the  system  ;  so  when  a  particular  belief  is 
fruitful  in  nobleness  of  character,  we  need  trouble  our- 
selves very  little  with  scientific  demonstrations  that  it  is 
false.  The  most  deadly  poison  may  be  chemically  undis- 
tinguishable  from  substances  which  are  perfectly  innocent. 
Prussic  acid,  we  are  told,  is  formed  of  the  same  elements, 
combined  in  the  same  proportions,  as  gum-arabic. 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  179 

What  that  belief  is  for  which  the  fruits  speak  thus  so 
positively,  it  is  less  easy  to  define.  Religion  from  the  be- 
ginning of  time  has  expanded  and  changed  with  the  growth 
of  knowledge.  The  religion  of  the  prophets  was  not  the 
religion  which  was  adapted  to  the  hardness  of  heart  of  the 
Israelites  of  the  Exodus.  The  gospel  set  aside  the  Law  ; 
the  creed  of  the  early  Church  was  not  the  creed  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  any  more  than  the  creed  of  Luther  and 
Cranmer  was  the  creed  of  St.  Bernard  and  Aquinas.  Old 
things  pass  away,  new  things  come  in  their  place  ;  and 
they  in  their  turn  grow  old,  and  give  place  to  others ;  yet 
in  each  of  the  many  forms  which  Christianity  has  assumed 
in  the  world,  holy  men  have  lived  and  died,  and  have  had 
the  witness  of  the  Spirit  that  they  were  not  far  from  the 
truth.  It  may  be  that  the  faith  which  saves  is  the  some- 
thing held  in  common  by  all  sincere  Christians,  and  by 
those  as  well  who  should  come  from  the  east  and  the 
west,  and  sit  down  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  when  the  chil- 
dren of  the  covenant  would  be  cast  out.  It  may  be  that 
the  true  teaching  of  our  Lord  is  overlaid  with  doctrines ; 
and  theology,  when  insisting  on  the  reception  of  its  huge 
catena  of  formulas,  may  be  binding  a  yoke  upon  our  necks 
which  neither  we  nor  our  fathers  were  able  to  bear. 

But  it  is  not  the  object  of  this  paper  to  put  forward  either 
this  or  any  other  particular  opinion.  The  writer  is  con- 
scious only  that  he  is  passing  fast  towards  the  dark  gate 
which  soon  will  close  behind  him.  He  believes  that  some 
kind  of  sincere  and  firm  conviction  on  these  things  is  of 
infinite  moment  to  him,  and,  entirely  diffident  of  his  own 
power  to  find  his  way  towards  such  a  conviction,  he  is  both 
ready  and  anxious  to  disclaim  "  all  right  of  private  judg- 
ment "  in  the  matter.  He  wishes  only  to  learn  from  those 
who  are  able  to  teach  him.  The  learned  prelates  talk  of 
the  presumptuousness  of  human  reason  ;  they  tell  us  that 
doubts  arise  from  the  consciousness  of  sin  and  the  pride  of 
the  unregenerate  heart.  The  present  writer,  wl.ile  he  be- 


180  A  Pl'.a  for  the  Free  Discmsion 

lieves  generally  that  reason,  however  inadequate,  is  the 
best  faculty  to  which  we  have  to  trust,  yet  is  most  painfully 
conscious  of  the  weakness  of  his  own  reason  ;  and  once  let 
the  real  judgment  of  the  best  and  wisest  men  be  declared 
—  let  those  who  are  most  capable  of  forming  a  sound 
opinion,  after  reviewing  the  whole  relations  of  science,  his- 
tory, and  what  is  now  received  as  revelation,  tell  us  fairly 
how  much  of  the  doctrines  popularly  taught  they  conceive 
to  be  adequately  established,  how  much  to  be  uncertain, 
and  how  much,  if  any  thing,  to  be  mistaken;  there  is 
scarcely,  perhaps,  a  single  serious  inquirer  who  would  not 
submit  with  delight  to  a  court  which  is  the  highest  on 
earth. 

Mr.  Mansell  tells  us  that  in  the  things  of  God  reason 
is  beyond  its  depth,  that  the  wise  and  the  unwise  are 
on  the  same  level  of  incapacity,  and  that  we  must  accept 
what  we  find  established,  or  we  must  believe  nothing. 
"We  presume  that  Mr.  ManselFs  dilemma  itself  is  a 
conclusion  of  reason.  Do  what  we  will,  reason  is  and 
must  be  our  ultimate  authority;  and  were  the  collective 
sense  of  mankind  to  declare  Mr.  Mansell  right,  we  should 
submit  to  that  opinion  as  readily  as  to  another.  But  the 
collective  sense  of  mankind  is  less  acquiescent.  He  has 
been  compared  to  a  man  sitting  on  the  end  of  a  plank  and 
deliberately  sawing  off  his  seat.  It  seems  never  to  have 
occurred  to  him  that,  if  he  is  right,  he  has  no  business  to 
be  a  Protestant.  "What  Mr.  Mansell  says  to  Professor 
Jov/ett,  Bishop  Gardiner  in  effect  replied  to  Frith  and  Rid- 
ley. Frith  and  Ridley  said  that  transubstantiation  was  un- 
reasonable ;  Gardiner  answered  that  there  was  the  letter 
of  Scripture  for  it,  and  that  the  human  intellect  was  no 
measure  of  the  power  of  God.  Yet  the  Reformers  some- 
how believed,  and  Mr.  Mansell  by  his  place  in  the  Church 
of  England  seems  to  agree  with  them,  that  the  human  in- 
tellect was  not  so  wholly  incompetent.  It  might  be  a  weak 
guide,  but  it  was  better  than  none  ;  and  they  declared  on 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  181 

grounds  of  mere  reason,  that  Christ  being  in  heaven  and 
not  on  earth,  "  it  was  contrary  to  the  truth  for  a  natural 
body  to  be  in  two  places  at  once."  The  common  sense  of 
the  country  was  of  the  same  opinion,  and  the  illusion  was 
at  an  end. 

There  have  been  "  Aids  to  Faith  "  produced  lately,  and 
"  Replies  to  the  Seven  Essayists,"  "  Answers  to  Colenso," 
and  much  else  of  the  kind.  We  regret  to  say  that  they 
have  done  little  for  us.  The  very  life  of  our  souls  is  at 
issue  in  the  questions  which  have  been  raised,  and  we  are 
fed  with  the  professional  commonplaces  of  the  members 
of  a  close  guild,  men  holding  high  office  in  the  Church,  or 
expecting  to  hold  high  office  there ;  in  either  case  with  a 
strong  temporal  interest  in  the  defense  of  the  institution 
which  they  represent.  We  desire  to  know  what  those  of 
the  clergy  think  whose  love  of  truth  is  unconnected  with 
their  prospects  in  life ;  we  desire  to  know  what  the  edu- 
cated laymen,  the  lawyers,  the  historians,  the  men  of 
science,  the  statesmen  think ;  and  these  are  for  the  most 
part  silent,  or  confess  themselves  modestly  uncertain.  The 
professional  theologians  alone  are  loud  and  confident ;  but 
they  speak  in  the  old. angry  tone  which  rarely  accompanies 
deep  and  wise  convictions.  They  do  not  meet  the  real 
difficulties  ;  they  mistake  them,  misrepresent  them,  claim 
victories  over  adversaries  with  whom  they  have  never  even 
crossed  swords,  and  leap  to  conclusions  with  a  precipitancy 
at  which  we  can  only  smile.  It  has  been  the  unhappy 
manner  of  their  class  from  immemorial  time  ;  they  call  it 
zeal  for  the  Lord,  as  if  it  were  beyond  all  doubt  that  they 
were  on  God's  side  —  as  if  serious  inquiry  after  truth  was 
something  which  they  were  entitled  to  resent.  They  treat 
intellectual  difficulties  as  if  they  deserved  rather  to  be  con- 
•lemned  and  punished  than  considered  and  weighed,  and 
rather  stop  their  ears  and  run  with  one  accord  upon  any 
one  who  disagrees  with  them  than  listen  patiently  to  what 
he  has  to  say. 


182  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

We  do  not  propose  to  enter  in  detail  upon  the  particular 
points  which  demand  re-discussion.  It  is  enough  that  the 
more  exact  habit  of  thought  which  science  has  engendered 
and  the  closer  knowledge  of  the  value  and  nature  of  evi- 
dence, has  notoriously  made  it  necessary  that  the  grounds 
should  be  reconsidered  on  which  we  are  to  believe  that 
one  country  and  one  people  was  governed  for  sixteen  cen- 
turies on  principles  different  from  those  which  we  now  find 
to  prevail  universally.  One  of  many  questions,  however, 
shall  be  briefly  glanced  at,  on  which  the  real  issue  seems 
habitually  to  be  evaded. 

Much  has  been  lately  said  and  written  on  the  authentic- 
ity of  the  Pentateuch  and  the  other  historical  books  of 
the  Old  Testament.  The  Bishop  of  Natal  has  thrown  out 
in  a  crude  form  the  critical  results  of  the  inquiries  of  the 
Germans,  coupled  with  certain  arithmetical  calculations, 
for  which  he  has  a  special  aptitude.  He  supposes  himself 
to  have  proved  that  the  first  five  books  of  the  Bible  are  a 
compilation  of  uncertain  date,  full  of  inconsistencies  and 
impossibilities.  The  apologists  have  replied  that  the  ob- 
jections are  not  absolutely  conclusive,  that  the  events  de- 
scribed in  the  Book  of  Exodus  might  possibly,  under  cer- 
tain combinations  of  circumstances,  have  actually  taken 
place  ;  and  they  then  pass  to  the  assumption  that  because  a 
story  is  not  necessarily  false,  therefore  it  is  necessarily  true. 
We  have  no  intention  of  vindicating  Dr.  Colenso.  His 
theological  training  makes  his  arguments  very  like  those 
of  his  opponents,  and  he  and  Dr.  M'Call  may  settle  their 
differences  between  themselves.  The  question  is  at  once 
wider  and  simpler  than  any  which  has  been  raised  in  that 
controversy.  Were  it  proved  beyond  possibility  of  error 
that  the  Pentateuch  was  written  by  Moses,  that  those  and 
all  the  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  were  really 
the  work  of  the  writers  whose  names  they  bear ;  were  the 
Mosaic  cosmogony  in  harmony  with  physical  discoveries  5 
and  were  the  supposed  inconsistencies  and  contradictions 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  183 

sfiown  to  have  no  existence  except  in  Dr.  Colenso's  iraag 
ination  —  we  should  not  have  advanced  a  single  step  to- 
wards making  good  the  claim  put  forward  for  the  Bible, 
that  it  is  absolutely  and  unexceptionably  true  in  all  its 
parts.  The  "  genuineness  and  authenticity  "  argument  is 
irrelevant  and  needless.  The  clearest  demonstration  of 
the  human  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch  proves  nothing 
about  its  immunity  from  errors.  If  there  are  no  mistakes 
in  it,  it  was  not  the  workmanship  of  man  ;  and  if  it  was 
inspired  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  there  is  no  occasion  to  show 
that  the  hand  of  Moses  was  the  instrument  made  use  of. 
To  the  most  excellent  of  contemporary  histories,  to  histo- 
ries written  by  eye-witnesses  of  the  facts  which  .they  de- 
scribe, we  accord  but  a  limited  confidence.  The  highest 
intellectual  competence,  the  most  admitted  truthfulness, 
immunity  from  prejudice,  and  the  absence  of  temptation 
to  misstate  the  truth  ;  these  things  may  secure  great  credi- 
bility, but  they  are  no  guaranty  for  minute  and  circum- 
stantial exactness.  Two  historians,  though  with  equal  gills 
and  equal  opportunities,  never  describe  events  in  exactly 
the  same  way.  Two  witnesses  in  a  court  of  law,  while 
they  agree  in  the  main,  invariably  differ  in  some  particu- 
lars. It  appears  as  if  men  could  not  relate  facts  precisely 
as  they  saw  or  as  they  heard  them.  The  different  parts  of 
a  story  strike  different  imaginations  unequally;  and  the 
mind,  as  the  circumstances  pass  through  it,  alters  their 
proportions  unconsciously,  or  shifts  the  perspective.  The 
credit  which  we  give  to  the  most  authentic  work  of  a  man 
has  no  resemblance  to  that  universal  acceptance  which  is 
demanded  for  the  Bible.  It  is  not  a  difference  of  degree : 
it  is  a  difference  in  kind  ;  and  we  desire  to  know  on  what 
ground  this  infallibility,  which  we  do  not  question,  but 
which  is  not  proved,  demands  our  belief.  Very  likely,  the 
Bible  is  thus  infallible.  Unless  it  is,  there  can  be  no  moral 
obligation  to  accept  the  facts  which  it  records  ;  and  though 
there  may  be  intellectual  error  in  denying  them,  there  can 


184  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

be  no  moral  sin.  Facts  may  be  better  or  worse  autheutl* 
cated  ;  but  all  the  proofs  in  the  world  of  the  genuineness 
and  authenticity  of  the  human  handiwork  cannot  establish 
a  claim  upon  the  conscience.  It  might  be  foolish  to  ques- 
tion Thucydides'  account  of  Pericles,  but  no  one  would 
call  it  sinful.  Men  part  with  all  sobriety  of  judgment 
when  they  come  on  ground  of  this  kind.  When  Sir  Henry 
Rawlinson  read  the  name  of  Sennacherib  on  the  Assyrian 
marbles,  and  found  allusions  there  to  the  Israelites  in  Pal- 
estine, we  were  told  that  a  triumphant  answer  had  been 
found  to  the  cavils  of  skeptics,  and  a  convincing  proof  of 
the  inspired  truth  of  the  Divine  Oracles.  Bad  arguments 
in  a  good  cause  are  a  sure  way  to  bring  distrust  upon  it 
The  Divine  Oracles  may  be  true,  and  may  be  inspired ; 
but  the  discoveries  at  Nineveh  certainly  do  not  prove  them 
so.  No  one  supposes  that  the  Books  of  Kings  or  the 
prophecies  of  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel  were  the  work  of  men 
who  had  no  knowledge  of  Assyria  or  the  Assyrian  Princes. 
It  is  possible  that  in  the  excavations  at  Carthage  some  Pu- 
nic inscription  may  be  found  confirming  Livy's  account  of 
the  battle  of  Cannas ;  but  we  shall  not  be  obliged  to  be- 
lieve therefore  in  the  inspiration  of  Livy,  or  rather  (for 
the  argument  comes  to  that)  in  the  inspiration  of  the 
whole  Latin  literature. 

We  are  not  questioning  the  fact  that  the  Bible  is  infalli- 
ble ;  we  desire  only  to  be  told  on  what  evidence  that  great 
and  awful  fact  concerning  it  properly  rests.  It  would 
seem,  indeed,  as  if  instinct  had  been  wiser  than  argument 
—  as  if  it  had  been  felt  that  nothing  short  of  this  literal 
and  close  inspiration  could  preserve  the  facts  on  which 
Christianity  depends.  The  history  of  the  early  world  is  a 
history  everywhere  of  marvels.  The  legendary  literature  of 
every  nation  upon  earth  tells  the  same  stories  of  prodigies 
and  wonders,  of  the  appearances  of  the  gods  upon  earth,  and 
of  their  intercourse  with  men.  The  lives  of  the  saints  of 
the  Catholic  Church,  from  the  time  of  the  Apostles  till  the 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  185 

present  day,  are  a  complete  tissue  of  miracles  resembling 
and  rivaling  those  of  the  Gospels.  Some  of  these  stories 
are  romantic  and  imaginative ;  some  clear,  literal,  and  pro- 
saic ;  some  rest  on  mere  tradition  ;  some  on  the  sworn 
testimony  of  eye-witnesses ;  some  are  obvious  fables ;  some 
are  as  well  authenticated  as  facts  of  such  a  kind  can  be 
authenticated  at  all.  The  Protestant  Christian  rejects 
every  one  of  them  —  rejects  them  without  inquiry  —  in- 
volves those  for  which  there  is  good  authority  and  those  foi 
which  there  is  none  or  little  in  one  absolute,  contemptuous, 
and  sweeping  denial.  The  Protestant  Christian  feels  it  more 
likely,  in  the  words  of  Hume,  that  men  should  deceive  or  be 
deceived,  than  that  the  laws  of  Nature  should  be  violated. 
At  this  moment  we  are  beset  with  reports  of  conversations 
with  spirits,  of  tables  miraculously  lifted,  of  hands  projected 
out  of  the  world  of  shadows  into  this  mortal  life.  An 
unusually  able,  accomplished  person,  accustomed  to  deal 
with  common-sense  facts,  a  celebrated  political  economist, 
and  notorious  for  business-like  habits,  assured  this  writer 
that  a  certain  mesmerist,  who  was  my  informant's  inti- 
mate friend,  had  raised  a  dead  girl  to  life.  We  should 
believe  the  people  who  tell  us  these  things  in  any  ordinary 
matter :  they  would  be  admitted  in  a  court  of  justice  as 
good  witnesses  in  a  criminal  case,  and  a  jury  would  hang  a 
man  on  their  word.  The  person  just  now  alluded  to  is  in- 
capable of  telling  a  willful  lie ;  yet  our  experience  of  the 
regularity  of  Nature  on  one  side  is  so  uniform,  and  our  ex- 
perience of  the  capacities  of  human  folly  on  the  other  is  so 
large,  that  when  people  tell  us  these  wonderful  stories,  most 
of  us  are  contented  to  smile  ;  we  do  not  care  so  much  as 
to  turn  out  of  our  way  to  examine  them. 

The  Bible  is  equally  a  record  of  miracles  ;  but  as  from 
other  histories  we  reject  miracles  without  hesitation,  so  of 
those  in  the  Bible  we  insist  on  the  universal  acceptance : 
the  former  are  all  false,  the  latter  are  all  true.  It  is  ev- 
ident, that  in  forming  conclusions  so  sweeping  as  these,  we 


186  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

cannot  even  suppose  that  we  are  being  guided  by  what  if 
called  historical  evidence.  Were  it  admitted  that,  as  a  whole, 
the  miracles  of  the  Bible  are  better  authenticated  than  the 
miracles  of  the  saints,  we  should  be  far  removed  still  from 
any  large  inference  that  in  the  one  set  there  is  no  room  for 
falsehood,  in  the  other  no  room  for  truth.  The  writer  or 
writers  of  the  Books  of  Kings  are  not  known.  The  books 
themselves  are  in  fact  confessedly  taken  from  older  writings 
which  are  lost ;  and  the  accounts  of  the  great  prophets  of 
Israel  are  a  counterpart,  curiously  like,  of  those  of  the  me- 
diaeval saints.  In  many  instances  the  authors  of  the  lives 
of  these  saints  were  their  companions  and  friends.  Why  do 
we  feel  so  sure  that  what  we  are  told  of  Elijah  or  Elisha 
took  place  exactly  as  we  read  it?  Why  do  we  reject  the 
account  of  St.  Columba  or  St.  Martin  as  a  tissue  of  idle 
fable  ?  Why  should  not  God  give  a  power  to  the  saint 
which  He  had  given  to  the  prophet?  We  can  produce  no 
reason  from  the  nature  of  things,  for  we  know  not  what 
the  nature  of  things  is  ;  and  if  down  to  the  death  of  the 
Apostles  the  ministers  of  religion  were  allowed  to  prove 
their  commission  by  working  miracles,  what  right  have  we, 
on  grounds  either  of  history  or  philosophy,  to  draw  a  clear 
line  at  the  death  of  St.  John  —  to  say  that  before  that  time 
all  such  stories  were  true,  and  after  it  all  were  false  ? 

There  is  no  point  on  which  Protestant  controversialists 
evade  the  real  question  more  habitually  than  on  that  of  mir- 
acles. They  accuse  those  who  withhold  that  unreserved  and 
absolute  belief  which  they  require  for  all  which  they  accept 
themselves,  of  denying  that  miracles  are  possible.  They 
assume  this  to  be  the  position  taken  up  by  the  objector,  and 
proceed  easily  to  argue  that  man  is  no  judge  of  the  power 
of  God.  Of  course  he  is  not.  No  sane  man  ever  raised 
his  narrow  understanding  into  a  measure  of  the  possibilities 
of  the  universe  ;  nor  does  any  person  with  any  pretensions 
to  religion  disbelieve  in  miracles  of  some  kind.  To  pray 
is  to  expect  a  miracle.  When  we  pray  for  the  recovery  of 


of  Tlieological  Difficulties. 

a  sick  friend,  for  the  gift  of  any  blessing,  or  the  removal  of 
any  calamity,  we  expect  that  God  will  do  something  by  an 
act  of  his  personal  will  which  otherwise  would  not  have 
been  done  —  that  He  will  suspend  the  ordinary  relations  of 
natural  cause  and  effect ;  and  this  is  the  very  idea  of  a  mir- 
acle. The  thing  we  pray  for  may  be  given  us,  and  no  mir- 
acle may  have  taken  place.  It  may  be  given  to  us  by 
natural  causes,  and  would  have  occurred  whether  we  had 
prayed  or  not.  But  prayer  itself  in  its  very  essence  im- 
plies a  belief  in  the  possible  intervention  of  a  power  which 
is  above  Nature.  The  question  about  miracles  is  simply 
one  of  evidence  —  whether  in  any  given  case  the  proof  is 
so  strong  that  no  room  is  left  for  mistake,  exaggeration,  or 
illusion,  while  more  evidence  is  required  to  establish  a  fact 
antecedently  improbable  than  is  sufficient  for  a  common 
occurrence. 

It  has  been  said  recently  by  "  A  Layman,"  in  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Maurice,  that  the  resurrection  of  our  Lord  is  as  well 
authenticated  as  the  death  of  Julius  Caesar.  It  is  far  better 
authenticated,  unless  we  are  mistaken  in  supposing  the 
Bible  inspired  ;  or  if  we  admit  as  evidence  that  inward  as- 
surance of  the  Christian,  which  would  make  him  rather  die 
than  disbelieve  a  truth  so  dear  to  him.  But  if  the  layman 
meant  that  there  was  as  much  proof  of  it,  in  the  sense  in 
which  proof  is  understood  in  a  court  of  justice,  he  could 
scarcely  have  considered  what  he  was  saying.  Julius  Cae- 
sar was  killed  in  a  public  place,  in  the  presence  of  friend 
and  foe,  in  a  remarkable  but  still  perfectly  natural  manner. 
The  circumstances  were  minutely  known  to  all  the  world, 
and  were  never  denied  or  doubted  by  any  one.  Our  Lord, 
on  the  other  hand,  seems  purposely  to  have  withheld  such 
public  proof  of  his  resurrection  as  would  have  left  no  room 
for  unbelief.  He  showed  Himself,  "  not  to  all  the  people  "  — 
not  to  his  enemies,  whom  his  appearance  would  have  over- 
whelmed —  but  "  to  witnesses  chosen  before  ;  "  to  the  circle 
of  his  own  friends.  There  is  no  evidence  which  a  jury 


188  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

could  admit  that  He  was  ever  actually  dead.  So  unusual 
was  it  for  persons  crucified  to  die  so  soon,  that  Pilate,  we 
are  told,  "  marveled."  The  subsequent  appearances  were 
strange,  and  scarcely  intelligible.  Those  who  saw  Him  did 
not  recognize  Him  till  He -was  made  known  to  them  in  the 
breaking  of  bread.  He  was  visible  and  invisible.  He  was 
mistaken  by  those  who  were  most  intimate  with  Him  for 
another  person  ;  nor  do  the  accounts  agree  which  are  given 
by  the  different  Evangelists.  Of  investigation  in  the 
modern  sense  (except  in  the  one  instance  of  St.  Thomas, 
and  St.  Thomas  was  rather  rebuked  than  praised)  there 
was  none,  and  could  be  none.  The  evidence  offered  was 
different  in  kind,  and  the  blessing  was  not  to  those  who 
satisfied  themselves  of  the  truth  of  the  fact  by  a  searching 
inquiry,  but  who  gave  their  assent  with  the  unhesitating 
confidence  of  love. 

St.  Paul's  account  of  his  own  conversion  is  an  instance 
of  the  kind  of  testimony  which  then  worked  the  strongest 
conviction.  St.  Paul,  a  fiery  fanatic  on  a  mission  of  per- 
secution, with  the  midday  Syrian  sun  streaming  down  upon 
his  head,  was  struck  to  the  ground,  and  saw  in  a  vision  our 
Lord  in  the  air.  If  such  a  thing  were  to  occur  at  the 
present  day,  and  if  a  modern  physician  were  consulted 
about  it,  he  would  say  without  hesitation,  that  it  was  an 
effect  of  an  overheated  brain,  and  that  there  was  nothing 
in  it  extraordinary  or  unusual.  If  the  impression  left  by 
the  appearance  had  been  too  strong  for  such  an  explana- 
tion to  be  satisfactory,  the  person  to  whom  it  occurred, 
especially  if  he  was  a  man  of  St.  Paul's  intellectual  stature, 
would  have  at  once  examined  into  the  facts  otherwise 
known,  connected  with  the  subject  of  what  he  had  seen. 
St.  Paul  had  evidently  before  disbelieved  our  Lord's  resur- 
rection —  had  disbelieved  it  fiercely  and  passionately ;  we 
should  have  expected  that  he  would  at  once  have  sought 
for  those  who  could  best  have  told  him  the  details  of  the 
truth.  St.  Paul,  however,  did  nothing  of  the  kind.  He 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  189 

went  for  a  year  into  Arabia,  and  when  at  last  he  returned 
to  Jerusalem,  he  rather  held  aloof  from  those  who  had  been 
our  Lord's  companions,  and  who  had  witnessed  his  ascen- 
sion. He  saw  Peter,  he  saw  James;  "of  the  rest  of  the 
apostles  saw  he  none,"  To  him  evidently  the  proof  of  the 
resurrection  was  the  vision  which  he  had  himself  seen.  It 
was  to  that  which  he  always  referred  when  called  on  for  a 
defense  of  his  faith. 

Of  evidence  for  the  resurrection,  in  the  common  sense 
of  the  word,  there  may  be  enough  to  show  that  something 
extraordinary  occurred ;  but  not  enough,  unless  we  assume 
the  fact  to  be  true  on  far  other  grounds,  to  produce  any 
absolute  and  unhesitating  conviction  ;  and  inasmuch  as  the 
resurrection  is  the  key-stone  of  Christianity,  the  belief  in  it 
must  be  something  far  different  from  that  suspended  judg- 
ment in  which  history  alone  would  leave  us. 

Human  testimony,  we  repeat,  under  the  most  favora- 
ble circumstances  imaginable,  knows  nothing  of  "  absolute 
certainty ; "  and  if  historical  facts  are  bound  up  with  the 
creed,  and  if  they  are  to  be  received  with  the  same  com- 
pleteness as  the  laws  of  conscience,  they  rest,  and  must 
rest,  either  on  the  divine  truth  of  Scripture,  or  on  the  di- 
vine witness  in  ourselves.  On  human  evidence,  the  mira- 
cles of  St.  Teresa  and  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  are  as  well 
established  as  those  of  the  New  Testament. 

M.  Ernest  Renan  has  recently  produced  an  account  of 
the  Gospel  story  which,  written  as  it  is  by  a  man  of  piety, 
intellect,  and  imagination,  is  spreading  rapidly  through  the 
educated  world.  Carrying  out  the  principles  with  which 
Protestants  have  swept  modern  history  clear  of  miracles 
to  their  natural  conclusions,  he  dismisses  all  that  is  miracu- 
lous from  the  life  of  our  Lord,  and  endeavors  to  reproduce 
the  original  Galilean  youth  who  lived  and  taught,  and  died 
in  Palestine  eighteen  hundred  years  ago.  We  have  no  in« 
tention  of  reviewing  M.  Renan.  He  will  be  read  soon 
enough  by  many  who  would  better  consider  their  peace  of 


190  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

mind  by  leaving  him  alone.  For  ourselves,  we  are  unable 
to  see  by  what  right,  if  he  rejects  the  miraculous  part  of 
the  narrative,  he  retains  the  rest ;  the  imagination  and  the 
credulity  which  invent  extraordinary  incidents,  invent  or- 
dinary incidents  also  ;  and  if  the  divine  element  in  the  life 
is  legendary,  the  human  may  be  legendary  also.  But  there 
is  one  lucid  passage  in  the  introduction  which  we  commend 
to  the  perusal  of  controversial  theologians :  — 

"  No  miracle  such  as  those  of  which  early  histories  are 
full  has  taken  place  under  conditions  which  science  can 
accept.  Experience  shows,  without  exception,  that  mira- 
cles occur  only  in  times  and  in  countries  in  which  mira- 
cles are  believed  in,  and  in  the  presence  of  persons  who 
are  disposed  to  believe  them.  No  miracle  has  ever  been 
performed  before  an  assemblage  of  spectators  capable  of 
testing  its  reality.  Neither,  uneducated  people,  nor  even 
men  of  the  world,  have  the  requisite  capacity  ;  great  pre- 
cautions are  needed,  and  a  long  habit  of  scientific  research. 
Have  we  not  seen  men  of  the  world  in  our  own  time  be- 
come the  dupes  of  the  most  childish  and  absurd  illusions  ? 
And  if  it  be  certain  that  no  contemporary  miracles  will 
bear  investigation,  is  it  not  possible  that  the  miracles  of  the 
past,  were  we  able  to  examine  into  them  in  detail,  would 
be  found  equally  to  contain  an  element  of  error  ?  It  is  not 
in  the  name  of  this  or  that  philosophy,  it  is  in  the  name  of 
an  experience  which  never  varies,  that  we  banish  miracles 
from  history.  We  do  not  say  a  miracle  is  impossible  — 
we  say  only  that  no  miracle  has  ever  yet  been  proved.  Let 
a  worker  of  miracles  come  forward  to-morrow  with  pre- 
tensions serious  enough  to  deserve  examination.  Let  us 
suppose  him  to  announce  that  he  is  able  to  raise  a  dead 
man  to  life.  What  would  be  done  ?  A  committee  would 
be  appointed,  composed  of  physiologists,  physicians,  chem- 
ists, and  persons  accustomed  to  exact  investigation  ;  a  body 
would  then  be  selected  which  the  committee  would  assure 
itself  was  really  dead ;  and  a  place  would  be  chosen  where 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  191 

the  experiment  was  to  take  place.  Every  precaution  would 
be  taken  to  leave  no  opening  for  uncertainty  ;  and  if,  under 
those  conditions,  the  restoration  to  life  was  effected,  a  prob- 
ability would  be  arrived  at  which  would  be  almost  equal  to 
certainty.  An  experiment,  however,  should  always  admit 
of  being  repeated.  What  a  man  has  done  once  he  should 
be  able  to  do  again  ;  and  in  miracles  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion of  ease  or  difficulty.  The  performer  would  be  re- 
quested to  repeat  the  operation  under  other  circumstances 
upon  other  bodies  ;  and  if  he  succeeded  on  every  occasion, 
two  points  would  be  established :  first,  that  there  may  be  in 
this  world  such  things  as  supernatural  operations ;  and, 
secondly,  that  the  power  to  perform  them  is  delegated  to, 
or  belongs  to,  particular  persons.  But  who  does  not  per- 
ceive that  no  miracle  was  ever  performed  under  such  con- 
ditions as  these  ?  " 

We  have  quoted  this  passage  because  it  expresses  with 
extreme  precision  and  clearness  the  common-sense  princi- 
ple which  we  apply  to  all  supernatural  stories  of  our  own 
time,  which  Protestant  theologians  employ  against  the 
whole  cycle  of  Catholic  miracles,  and  which  M.  Renan  is 
only  carrying  to  its  logical  conclusions  in  applying  to  the 
history  of  our  Lord,  if  the  Gospels  are  tried  by  the  mere 
tests  of  historical  criticism.  The  Gospels  themselves  tell 
us  why  M.  Kenan's  conditions  were  never  satisfied.  Mira- 
cles were  not  displayed  in  the  presence  of  skeptics  to  es- 
tablish scientific  truths.  When  the  adulterous  generation 
sought  after  a  sign,  the  sign  was  not  given  ;  nay,  it  is  even 
said  that  in  the  presence  of  unbelief,  our  Lord  was  not 
able  to  work  miracles.  But  science  has  less  respect  for  that 
undoubting  and  submissive  willingness  to  believe  ;  and  it  is 
quite  certain  that  if  we  attempt  to  establish  the  truth  of 
the  New  Testament  on  the  principles  of  Paley  —  if  with 
Professor  Jowett  "  we  interpret  the  Bible  as  any  other 
book,"  the  element  of  miracle  which  has  evaporated  from 
the  entire  surface  of  human  history  will  not  maintain  itself 


192  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

in  the  sacred  ground  of  the  Gospels,  and  the  facts  of  Chris- 
tianity will  melt  in  our  hands  like  a  snowball. 

Nothing  less  than  a  miraculous  history  can  sustain  the 
credibility  of  miracles,  and  nothing  could  be  more  likely,  if 
revelation  be  a  reality  and  not  a  dream,  than  that  the  his- 
tory containing  it  should  be  saved  in  its  composition  from 
the  intermixture  of  human  infirmity.  This  is  the  position 
in  which  instinct  long  ago  taught  Protestants  to  entrench 
themselves,  and  where  alone  they  can  hope  to  hold  their 
ground :  once  established  in  these  lines,  they  were  safe  and 
unassailable,  unless  it  could  be  demonstrated  that  any  fact 
or  facts  related  in  the  Bible  were  certainly  untrue. 

Nor  would  it  be  necessary  to  say  any  more  upon  the 
subject  Those  who  believe  Christianity  would  admit  the 
assumption ;  those  who  disbelieve  Christianity  would  repu- 
diate it.  The  argument  would  be  narrowed  to  that  plain 
and  single  issue,  and  the  elaborate  treatises  upon  external 
evidence  would  cease  to  bring  discredit  upon  the  cause  by 
their  feebleness.  Unfortunately  —  and  this  is  the  true 
secret  of  our  present  distractions  —  it  seems  certain  that 
in  some  way  or  other  this  belief  in  inspiration  itself  re- 
quires to  be  revised.  We  are  compelled  to  examine  more 
precisely  what  we  mean  by  the  word.  The  account  of  the 
creation  of  man  and  the  world  which  is  given  in  Genesis, 
and  which  is  made  by  St.  Paul  the  basis  of  his  theology, 
has  not  yet  been  reconciled  with  facts  which  science  knows 
to  be  true.  Death  was  in  the  world  before  Adam's  sin,  and 
unless  Adam's  a<je  be  thrust  back  to  a  distance  which  no 

D 

ingenuity  can  torture  the  letter  of  Scripture  into  recogniz- 
ing, men  and  women  lived  and  died  upon  the  earth  whole 
millenniums  before  the  Eve  of  Sacred  History  listened  to 
the  temptation  of  the  snake.  Neither  has  any  such  deluge 
as  that  from  which,  according  to  the  received  interpreta- 
tion, the  ark  saved  Noah,  swept  over  the  globe  within  the 
human  period.  We  are  told  that  it  was  not  God's  purpose 
to  anticipate  the  natural  course  of  discovery :  as  the  story 


of  Theological  Difficulties.  193 

of  the  creation  was  written  in  human  language,  so  the 
details  of  it  may  have  been  adapted  to  the  existing  state 
of  human  knowledge.  The  Bible,  it  is  said,  was  not  in- 
tended to  teach  men  science,  but  to  teach  them  what  was 
necessary  for  the  moral  training  of  their  souls.  It  may  be 
that  this  is  true.  Spiritual  grace  affects  the  moral  character 
of  men,  but  leaves  their  intellect  unimproved.  The  most 
religious  men  are  as  liable  as  atheists  to  ignorance  of  ordi- 
nary facts,  and  inspiration  may  be  only  infallible  when  it 
touches  on  truths  necessary  to  salvation.  But  if  it  be  so, 
there  are  many  things  in  the  Bible  which  must  become  as 
uncertain  as  its  geology  or  its  astronomy.  There  is  the 
long  secular  history  of  the  Jewish  people.  Let  it  be  once 
established  that  there  is  room  for  error  anywhere,  and  we 
have  no  security  for  the  accuracy  of  this  history.  The 
inspiration  of  the  Bible  is  the  foundation  of  our  whole 
belief;  and  it  is  a  grave  matter  if  we  are  uncertain  to  what 
extent  it  reaches,  or  how  much  and  what  it  guarantees  to 
us  as  true.  We  cannot  live  on  probabilities.  The  faith  in 
which  we  can  live  bravely  and  die  in  peace  must  be  a  cer- 
tainty, so  far  as  it  professes  to  be  a  faith  at  all,  or  it  is 
nothing.  It  may  be  that  all  intellectual  efforts  to  arrive  at 
it  are  in  vain  ;  that  it  is  given  to  those  to  whom  it  is  given, 
and  withheld. from  those  from  whom  it  is  withheld.  It  may 
be  that  the  existing  belief  is  undergoing  a  silent  modifica- 
tion, like  those  to  which  the  dispensations  of  religion  have 
been  successively  subjected ;  or,  again,  it  may  be  that  to 
the  creed  as  it  is  already  established  there  is  nothing  to  be 
added,  and  nothing  any  more  to  be  taken  from  it.  At  this 
moment,  however,  the  most  vigorous  minds  appear  least  to 
see  their  way  to  a  conclusion  ;  and  notwithstanding  all  the 
school  and  church  building,  the  extended  episcopate,  and 
the  religious  newspapers,  a  general  doubt  is  coming  up  like 
a  thunderstorm  against  the  wind,  and  blackening  the  sky. 
Those  who  cling  most  tenaciously  to  the  faith  in  which  they 
were  educated,  yet  confess  themselves  perplexed.  They 
13 


194  A  Plea  for  the  Free  Discussion 

know  what  they  believe ;  but  why  they  believe  it,  or  why 
they  should  require  others  to  believe,  they  cannot  tell  or 
cannot  agree.  Between  the  authority  of  the  Church  and 
the  authority  of  the  Bible,  the  testimony  of  history  and  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit,  the  ascertained  facts  of  science  and 
the  contradictory  facts  which  seem  to  be  revealed,  the 
minds  of  men  are  tossed  to  and  fro,  harassed  by  the 
changed  attitude  in  which  scientific  investigation  has  placed 
us  all  towards  accounts  of  supernatural  occurrences.  We 
thrust  the  subject  aside ;  we  take  refuge  in  practical  work ; 
we  believe,  perhaps,  that  the  situation  is  desperate,  and 
hopeless  of  improvement ;  we  refuse  to  let  the  question  be 
disturbed.  But  we  cannot  escape  from  our  shadow,  and 
the  spirit  of  uncertainty  will  haunt  the  world  like  an  uneasy 
ghost,  till  we  take  it  by  the  throat  like  men. 

We  return  then  to  the  point  from  which  we  set  out.  The 
time  is  past  for  repression.  Despotism  has  done  its  work  ; 
but  the  day  of  despotism  is  gone,  and  the  only  remedy  is  a 
full  and  fair  investigation.  Things  will  never  right  them- 
selves if  they  are  let  alone.  It  is  idle  to  say  peace  when 
there  is  no  peace  ;  and  the  concealed  imposthume  is  more 
dangerous  than  an  open  wound.  The  law  in  this  country 
has  postponed  our  trial,  but  cannot  save  us  from  it ;  and 
the  questions  which  have  agitated  the  Continent  are  agitat- 
ing us  at  last.  The  student  who  twenty  years  ago  was  con- 
tented with  the  Greek  and  Latin  Fathers  and  the  Anglican 
Divines,  now  reads  Ewald  and  Renan.  The  Church  author- 
ities still  refuse  to  look  their  difficulties  in  the  face ;  they 
prescribe  for  mental  troubles  the  established  doses  of  Paley 
and  Pearson  ;  they  refuse  dangerous  questions  as  sinful, 
and  tread  the  round  of  commonplace  in  placid  comfort. 
But  it  will  not  avail.  Their  pupils  grow  to  manhood,  and 
fight  the  battle  for  themselves,  unaided  by  those  who  ought 
to  have  stood  by  them  in  their  trial,  and  could  not  or  would 
not ;  and  the  bitterness  of  those  conflicts,  and  the  end  of 
most  of  them  in  heart-broken  uncertaintv  or  careless  in- 


ef  Tlieological  Difficulties.  195 

difference,  is  too  notorious  to  all  who  care  to  know  abou 
such  things. 

We  cannot  afford  year  after  year  to  be  distracted  with 
the  tentative  skepticism  of  essayists  and  reviewers.  In  a 
healthy  condition  of  public  opinion  such  a  book  as  Bishop 
Colenso's  would  have  passed  unnoticed,  or  rather  would 
never  have  been  written,  for  the  difficulties  with  which  it 
deals  would  have  been  long  ago  met  and  disposed  of. 
When  questions  rose  in  the  early  and  middle  ages  of  the 
Church,  they  were  decided  by  councils  of  the  wisest :  those 
best  able  to  judge  met  together,  and  compared  their 
thoughts,  and  conclusions  were  arrived  at  which  indi- 
viduals could  accept  and  act  upon.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  English  Reformation,  when  Protestant  doctrine  was 
struggling  for  reception,  and  the  old  belief  was  merging 
in  the  new,  the  country  was  deliberately  held  in  formal 
suspense.  Protestants  and  Catholics  were  set  to  preach 
on  alternate  Sundays  in  the  same  pulpit ;  subjects  were 
discussed  freely  in  the  ears  of  the  people ;  and  at  last, 
when  all  had  been  said  on  both  sides,  Convocation  and 
Parliament  embodied  the  result  in  formulas.  Councils  will 
no  longer  answer  the  purpose  ;  the  clergy  have  no  longer 
a  superiority  of  intellect  or  cultivation ;  and  a  conference 
of  prelates  from  all  parts  of  Christendom,  or  even  from  all 
departments  of  the  English  Church,  would  not  present  an 
edifying  spectacle.  Parliament  may  no  longer  meddle  with 
opinions  unless  it  be  to  untie  the  chains  which  it  forged 
three  centuries  ago.  But  better  than  councils,  better  than 
sermons,  better  than  Parliament,  is  that  free  discussion 
through  a  free  press  which  is  the  best  instrument  for  the 
discovery  of  truth,  and  the  most  effectual  means  for  pre- 
serving it. 

We  shall  be  told,  perhaps,  that  we  are  beating  the  air  — 
that  the  press  is  free,  and  that  all  men  may  and  do  write 
what  they  please.  It  is  not  so.  Discussion  is  not  free  so 
long  as  the  clergy  who  take  any  side  but  one  are  liable  to 


196    Free  Discussion  of  Theological  Difficulties. 

be  prosecuted  and  deprived  of  their  means  of  living  ;  it  is 
not  free  so  long  as  the  expression  of  doubt  is  considered  as 
a  sin  by  public  opinion  and  as  a  crime  by  the  law.  So  far 
are  \ve  from  free  discussion,  that  the  world  is  not  yet  agreed 
that  a  free  discussion  is  desirable  ;  and  till  it  be  so  agreed, 
the  substantial  intellect  of  the  country  will  not  throw  itself 
into  the  question.  The  battle  will  continue  to  be  fought  by 
outsiders,  who  suffice  to  disturb  a  repose  which  they  cannot 
restore ;  and  that  collective  voice  of  the  national  under- 
standing, which  alone  can  give  back  to  us  a  peaceful  and 
assured  conviction,  will  not  be  heard. 


CRITICISM  AND   THE   GOSPEL  HISTORY.' 


THE  spirit' of  criticism  is  not  the  spirit  of  religion.  The 
spirit  of  criticism  is  a  questioning  spirit ;  the  spirit  of  relig- 
ion is  a  spirit  of  faith,  of  humility,  and  submission.  Other 
qualities  may  go  to  the  formation  of  a  religious  character  in 
the  highest  and  grandest  sense  of  the  word ;  but  the  vir- 
tues which  religious  teachers  most  generally  approve,  which 
make  up  the  ideal  of  a  Catholic  saint,  which  the  Catholic 
and  all  other  churches  endeavor  most  to  cultivate  in  their 
children,  are  those  of  passive  and  loyal  obedience,  a  devo- 
tion without  reserve  or  qualification ;  or,  to  use  the  technical 
word,  "  a  spirit  of  teachableness."  A  religious  education 
is  most  successful  when  it  has  formed  a  mind  to  which  diffi- 
culties are  welcome  as  an  opportunity  for  the  triumph  of 
faith,  which  regards  doubts  as  temptations  to  be  resisted 
like  the  suggestions  of  sensuality,  and  which  alike  in  action 
or  opinion  follows  the  path  prescribed  to  it  with  affectionate 
and  unhesitating  confidence. 

To  men  or  women  of  the  tender  and  sensitive  piety 
which  is  produced  by  such  a  training,  an  inquiry  into  the 
grounds  of  its  faith  appears  shocking  and  profane.  To 
demand  an  explanation  of  ambiguities  or  mysteries  of  which 
they  have  been  accustomed  to  think  only  upon  their  knees, 
is  as  it  were  to  challenge  the  Almighty  to  explain  his  ways 
to  his  creatures,  and  to  refuse  obedience  unless  human  pre- 
sumption has  been  first  gratified. 

Undoubtedly,  not  in  religion  only,  but  in  any  branch  of 
human  knowledge,  teachableness  is  the  condition  of  growth, 

1  Frnser't  Magazint,  1864. 


198  Criticism  and  the  Gospel  History. 

We  augur  ill  for  the  future  of  the  youth  who  sets  his  own 
judgment  against  that  of  his  instructors,  and  refuses  to 
believe  what  cannot  be  at  once  made  plain  to  him.  Yet 
again,  the  wise  instructor  will  not  lightly  discourage  ques- 
tions Avhich  are  prompted  by  an  intelligent  desire  of  knowl- 
edge. That  an  uninquiring  submission  produces  characters 
of  great  and  varied  beauty ;  that  it  has  inspired  the  most 
splendid  acts  of  endurance  which  have  given  a  lustre  to 
humanity,  no  one  will  venture  to  deny.  A  genial  faith  is 
one  of  that  group  of  qualities  which  commend  themselves 
most  to  the  young,  the  generous,  and  the  enthusiastic,  —  to 
those  whose  native  and  original  nobleness  has  suffered  least 
from  contact  with  the  world,  —  which  belong  rather  to  the 
imagination  than  the  reason,  and  stand  related  to  truth 
through  the  emotions  rather  than  through  the  sober  calcu- 
lations of  probability.  It  is  akin  to  loyalty,  to  enthusiasm, 
to  hero-worship,  to  that  deep  affection  to  a  person  or  a 
cause  which  can  see  no  fault  in  what  it  loves. 

"  Belief,"  says  Mr.  Sewell,  "  is  a  virtue  ;  doubt  is  a  sin." 
lago  is  nothing  if  not  critical ;  and  the  skeptical  spirit  — 
der  Geist  der  stets  verneint  —  which  is  satisfied  with  noth- 
ing, which  sees  in  every  thing  good  the  seed  of  evil,  and 
the  weak  spot  in  every  great  cause  or  nature,  has  been 
made  the  special  characteristic  —  we  all  feel  with  justice  — 
of  the  devil. 

And  yet  this  devotedness  or  devotion,  this  reverence  for 
authority,  is  but  one  element  of  excellence.  To  reverence 
is  good  ;  but  on  the  one  condition  that  the  object  of  it  be 
a  thing  which  deserves  reverence;  and  the  necessary  com- 
plement, the  security  that  we  are  not  bestowing  our  best  af- 
fections where  they  should  not  be  given,  must  be  looked  for 
in  some  quality  which,  if  less  attractive,  is  no  less  essential 
for  our  true  welfare.  To  prove  all  things  —  to  try  the  spirits 
whether  they  be  of  God  —  is  a  duty  laid  upon  us  by  the  high- 
est authority  ;  and  what  is  called  progress  in  human  things, 
religious  as  well  as  material,  has  been  due  uniformly  to  a 


Criticism  and  the   Gospel  History,  199 

dissatisfaction  with  them  as  they  are.  Every  advance  in 
science,  every  improvement  in  the  command  of  the  me- 
chanical forces  of  Nature,  every  step  in  political  or  social 
freedom,  has  risen  in  the  first  instance  from  an  act  of  skep- 
ticism, from  an  uncertainty  whether  the  formulas,  or  the 
opinions,  or  the  government,  or  the  received  practical  theo- 
ries were  absolutely  perfect ;  or  whether  beyond  the  circle 
of  received  truths  there  might  not  lie  something  broader, 
deeper,  truer,  and  thus  better  deserving  the  acceptance  of 
mankind. 

Submissiveness,  humility,  obedience,  produce  if  uneor- 
rected,  in  politics,  a  nation  of  slaves,  whose  baseness  be- 
comes an  incentive  to  tyranny ;  in  religion,  they  produce 
the  consecration  of  falsehood,  poperies,  immaculate  concep- 
tions, winking  images,  and  the  confessional.  The  spirit  of 
inquiry,  if  left  to  itself,  becomes  in  like  manner  a  disease 
of  uncertainty,  and  terminates  in  universal  skepticism.  It 
seems  as  if  in  a  healthy  order  of  things,  to  the  willingness 
to  believe  there  should  be  chained  as  its  inseparable  com- 
panion a  jealousy  of  deception ;  and  there  is  no  lesson 
more  important  for  serious  persons  to  impress  upon  them- 
selves than  that  each  of  these  temperaments  must  learn  to 
tolerate  the  other ;  faith  accepting  from  reason  the  sanc- 
tion of  its  service,  and  reason  receiving  in  return  the  warm 
pulsations  of  life.  The  two  principles  exist  together  in  the 
highest  natures  ;  and  the  man  who  in  the  best  sense  of  the 
word  is  devout,  is  also  the  most  cautious  to  whom  or  to 
what  he  pays  his  devotion.  Among  the  multitude,  the 
units  of  which  are  each  inadequate  and  incomplete,  the  ele- 
ments are  disproportionately  mixed :  some  men  are  humble 
and  diffident,  some  are  skeptical  and  inquiring ;  yet  both 
are  filling  a  place  in  the  great  intellectual  economy  ;  both 
contribute  to  make  up  the  sum  and  proportion  of  qualities 
which  are  required  to  hold  the  balance  even  ;  and  neither 
party  is  entitled  to  say  to  the  other,  "  Stand  by  ;  I  am  ho- 
lier than  thou." 


200  Criticism  and  the  Gospel  History. 

And  as  it  is  with  individuals,  so  is  it  also  with  whole 
periods  and  cycles.  For  centuries  together  the  believing 
spirit  held  undisputed  sovereignty ;  and  these  were  what 
are  called  "ages  of  faith,"  ages,  that  is,  in  which  the  highest 
business  of  the  intellect  was  to  pray  rather  than  to  investi- 
gate ;  when  for  every  unusual  phenomenon  a  supernatural 
cause  was  instinctively  assumed  ;  when  wonders  were  cred- 
ible in  proportion  to  their  magnitude;  and  theologians, 
with  easy  command  of  belief,  added  miracle  to  miracle  and 
piled  dogma  upon  dogma.  Then  the  tide  changed  ;  a  fresh 
era  opened,  which  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  considered  the 
old  system  the  only  right  one,  was  the  letting  loose  of  the 
impersonated  spirit  of  evil ;  when  profane  eyes  were  look- 
ing their  idols  in  the  face  ;  when  men  were  saying  to  the 
miraculous  images,  "  You  are  but  stone  and  wood,"  and  to 
the  piece  of  bread,  "  You  are  but  dust  as  I  am  dust ; "  and 
then  the  huge  medieval  fabric  crumbled  clown  in  ruin. 

All  forms  of  thought,  all  objects  of  devotion,  are  made 
thus  liable  to  perpetual  revision,  if  only  that  belief  shall  not 
petrify  into  habit,  but  remain  the  reasonable  conviction  of 
a  reasonable  soul.  The  change  of  times  and  the  change 
of  conditions  change  also  the  appearance  of  things  which 
in  themselves  are  the  same  which  they  always  were.  Facts 
supposed  once  to  be  as  fixed  as  the  stars  melt  into  fiction. 
A  closer  acquaintance  with  the  phenomena  of  experience 
has  revealed  to  us  the  action  of  forces  before  undreamt  of 
working  through  Nature  with  unerring  uniformity ;  and  to 
the  mediaeval  stories  of  magic,  witchcraft,  or  the  miracles 
of  saints,  we  are  thus  placed  in  a  new  relation.  The  direct 
evidence  on  which  such  stories  were  received  may  remain 
unimpaired,  but  it  no  longer  produces  the  same  conviction. 
Even  in  ordinary  human  things  where  the  evidence  is  lost, 
—  as  in  some  of  our  own  State  trials,  and  where  we  know 
only  that  it  was  such  as  brought  conviction  to  judges,  juries, 
and  parliaments,  —  historians  do  not  hesitate  to  call  their 
verdicts  into  question,  thinking  it  more  likely  that  whole 


Criticism  and  the  Cf-ospel  History.  201 

masses  of  men  should  have  been  led  away  by  passion  or 
fraud  or  cowardice  than  that  this  or  that  particular  crime 
should  have  been  committed.  That  we  often  go  beyond 
our  office  and  exaggerate  the  value  of  our  new  criteria  of 
truth  may  be  possible  enough  ;  but  it  is  no  less  certain  that 
this  is  the  tendency  of  modern  thought.  Our  own  age,  like 
every  age  which  has  gone  before  it,  judges  the  value  of 
testimony,  not  by  itself  merely,  but  by  the  degree  to  which 
it  corresponds  with  our  own  sense  of  the  laws  of  probabil- 
ity ;  and  we  consider  events  probable  or  improbable  by  the 
habit  of  mind  which  is  the  result  of  our  general  knowledge 
and  culture.  To  the  Catholic  of  the  Middle  Ages  a  miracle 
was  more  likely  than  not ;  and  when  he  was  told  that  a 
miracle  had  been  Avorked,  he  believed  it  as  he  would  have 
believed  had  he  been  told  that  a  shower  of  rain  had  fallen, 
or  that  the  night  frost  had  killed  the  buds  upon  his  fruit- 
trees.  If  his  cattle  died,  he  found  the  cause  in  the  malice 
of  Satan  or  the  evil  eye  of  a  witch  ;  and  if  two  or  more 
witnesses  could  have  been  found  to  swear  that  they  had 
heard  an  old  woman  curse  him,  she  would  have  been  burnt 
for  a  sorceress.  The  man  of  science,  on  the  other  hand, 
knows  nothing  of  witches  and  sorcerers  ;  when  he  can  find 
a  natural  cause  he  refuses  to  entertain  the  possibility  of  the 
intervention  of  a  cause  beyond  Nature ;  and  thus  that  very 
element  of  marvel  which  to  the  more  superstitious  temper- 
ament was  an  evidence  of  truth,  becomes  to  the  better 
informed  a  cause  of  suspicion. 

So  it  has  been  that  throughout  history,  as  between  indi- 
viduals among  ourselves,  we  trace  two  habits  of  thought, 
one  of  which  has  given  us  churches,  creeds,  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  God ;  the  other  has  given  us  freedom  and  science, 
has  pruned  the  luxuriance  of  imaginative  reverence,  and 
reminds  piety  of  what  it  is  too  ready  to  forget  —  that  God 
is  truth.  Yet,  essential  as  they  are  to  one  another,  each 
keeps  too  absolutely  to  the  circle  of  its  own  convictions, 
and,  but  half  able  to  recognize  the  merit  of  principles 


202          Qntiaam  and  the  G-ospel  History. 

which  are  alien  to  its  own,  regards  the  other  as  its  natural 
enemy. 

To  the  warm  and  enthusiastic  pietist  the  inquirer  ap- 
pears as  a  hater  pf  God,  an  inveterate  blasphemer  of  holy 
things,  soiling  with  rude  and  insolent  hands  what  ought 
only  to  be  humbly  adored.  The  saint  when  he  has  the 
power  calls  the  sword  to  his  aid,  and  in  his  zeal  for  what 
he  calls  the  honor  of  God,  makes  war  upon  such  people 
with  steel  and  fire.  The  innovator,  on  the  other  hand, 
knowing  that  he  is  not  that  evil  creature  which  his  rival 
represents  him  as  being,  knowing  that  he  too  desires  only 
truth,  first  suffers  ;  suffers  in  rough  times  at  stake  and  scaf- 
fold ;  suffers  in  our  own  later  days  in  good  name,  in  repu- 
tation, in  worldly  fortune ;  and  as  the  whirligig  of  time 
brings  round  his  turn  of  triumph,  takes,  in  French  revolu- 
tions and  such  other  fits  of  madness,  his  own  period  of  wild 
revenge.  The  service  of  truth  is  made  to  appear  as  one 
thing,  the  service  of  God  as  another ;  and  in  that  fatal 
separation  religion  dishonors  itself  with  unavailing  enmity 
to  what  nevertheless  it  is  compelled  at  last  to  accept  in 
humiliation ;  and  science,  welcoming  the  character  which 
its  adversary  flings  upon  it,  turns  away  with  answering  hos- 
tility from  doctrines  without  which  its  own  highest  achieve- 
ments are  but  pyramids  of  ashes. 

Is  this  antagonism  a  law  of  humanity?  As  mankind 
move  upwards  through  the  ascending  circles  of  progress,  is 
it  forever  to  be  with  them  as  with  the  globe  which  they 
inhabit,  of  which  one  hemisphere  is  perpetually  dark  ? 
Have  the  lessons  of  the  Reformation  been  thrown  away  ? 
Is  knowledge  always  to  advance  under  the  ban  of  religion  ? 
Is  faith  never  to  cease  to  dread  investigation  ?  Is  science 
chiefly  to  value  each  new  discovery  as  a  victory  gained  over 
its  rival  ?  Is  the  spiritual  world  to  revolve  eternally  upon 
an  axis  of  which  the  two  poles  are  materialism  and  super- 
stition, to  be  buried  in  their  alternate  occultations  in  periods 
of  utter  darkness,  or  lifted  into  an  icy  light  where  there  is 
neither  life  nor  warmth  ? 


Criticism  and  the   Gospel  History.  203 

How  it  may  be  in  the  remote  future  it  is  idle  to  guess ; 
for  the  present  the  signs  are  not  hopeful.  We  are  arrived 
visibly  at  one  of  those  recurring  times  when  the  accounts 
are  called  in  for  audit ;  when  the  title-deeds  are  to  be 
looked  through,  and  established  opinions  again  tested.  It 
is  a  process  which  has  been  repeated  more  than  once  in 
the  world's  history ;  the  last  occasion  and  greatest  being 
the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century ;  and  the  experi- 
ence of  that  matter  might  have  satisfied  the  most  timid 
that  truth  has  nothing  to  fear ;  and  that  religion  emerges 
out  of  such  trials  stronger  and  brighter  than  before.  Yet 
Churchmen  have  not  profited  by  the  experience ;  the  pul- 
pits and  the  religious  press  ring  again  with  the  old  shrieks 
of  sacrilege >  the  machinery  of  the  law  courts  is  set  creak- 
ing on  its  rusty  hinges,  and  denunciation  and  anathema  in 
the  old  style  take  the  place  of  reasoning.  It  will  not  an- 
swer ;  and  the  worst  danger  to  what  is  really  true  is  the 
want  of  wisdom  in  its  defenders.  The  language  which  we 
sometimes  hear  about  these  things  seems  to  imply  that 
while  Christianity  is  indisputably  true,  it  cannot  stand  nev- 
ertheless without  bolt  and  shackle,  as  if  the  Author  of  our 
faith  had  left  the  evidence  so  weak  that  an  honest  investi- 
gation would  fail  to  find  it. 

Inevitably,  the  altered  relation  in  which  modern  culture 
places  the  minds  of  all  of  us  towards  the  supernatural,  will 
compel  a  reconsideration  of  the  grounds  on  which  the  ac- 
ceptance of  miracles  is  required.  If  the  English  learned 
clergy  had  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  they  would  be 
the  first  to  take  possession  of  the  field ;  they  would  look 
the  difficulty  in  the  face  fearlessly  and  frankly,  and  we 
should  not  be  tossing  as  we  are  now  in  an  ocean  of  uncer- 
tainty, ignorant  whether,  if  things  seem  obscure  to  us,  the 
fault  is  with  our  intellects  or  our  hearts. 

It  might  have  been  that  Providence,  anticipating  the 
effect  produced  on  dead  testimony  by  time  and  change,  had 
raised  religion  into  a  higher  sphere,  and  had  appointed  on 


204  Criticism  and  the   Gospel  History. 

earth  a  living  and  visible  authority  which  could  not  err, 
guided  by  the  Holy  Spirit  into  truth,  and  divinely  sustained 
in  the  possession  of  it.  Such  a  body  the  Eoman  Catholic 
Church  conceives  itself  to  be  ;  but  in  breaking  away  from 
its  communion,  Protestant  Christians  have  declared  their 
conviction  that  neither  the  Church  of  Rome,  nor  they 
themselves,  nor  any  other  body  of  men  on  earth,  are  ex- 
empt from  a  liability  to  error.  It  is  no  longer  competent 
for  the  Anglican  communion  to  say  that  a  doctrine  or  a  fact 
is  true  because  it  forms  a  part  of  their  teaching,  because  it 
has  come  down  to  them  from  antiquity,  and  because  to  deny 
it  is  sin.  Transubstantiation  came  down  to  the  Fathers  of 
the  Reformation  from  antiquity  ;  it  was  received  and  in- 
sisted upon  by  the  Catholic  Church  of  Christendom  ;  yet 
nevertheless  it  was  flung  out  from  among  us  as  a  lie  and 
an  offense.  The  theory  of  the  Divine  authority  of  the 
Church  was  abandoned  in  the  act  of  Protestantism  three 
centuries  ago  ;  it  was  the  central  principle  of  that  great 
revolt  that  the  establishment  of  particular  opinions  was  no 
guaranty  for  their  truth  ;  and  it  becomes  thus  our  duty  as 
well  as  our  right  to  examine  periodically  our  intellectual 
defenses,  to  abandon  positions  which  the  alteration  of  time 
makes  untenable,  and  to  admit  and  invite  into  the  service 
of  the  sanctuary  the  fullest  light  of  advancing  knowledge. 
Of  all  positions  the  most  fatally  suicidal  for  Protestants  to 
occupy  is  the  assumption,  which  it  is  competent  for  Roman 
Catholics  to  hold,  but  not  for  them,  that  beliefs  once  sanc- 
tioned by  the  Church  are  sacred,  and  that  to  impugn  them 
is  not  error  but  crime. 

With  a  hope,  then,  that  this  reproach  may  be  taken  away 
from  us ;  that,  in  this  most  wealthily-endowed  Church  of 
England,  where  so  many  of  the  most  gifted  and  most  ac- 
complished men  among  us  are  maintained  in  well-paid 
leisure  to  attend  to  such  things,  we  may  not  be  left  any 
longer  to  grope  our  way  in  the  dark,  the  present  writer 
puts  forward  some  few  perplexities  of  which  it  would  be 


Criticism  and  the  Gospel  History.  205 

well  if  English  divinity  contained  a  clearer  solution  than  is 
found  there.  The  laity,  occupied  in  other  matters,  regard 
the  clergy  as  the  trustees  of  their  spiritual  interests ;  but 
inasmuch  as  the  clergy  tell  them  that  the  safety  of  their 
souls  depends  on  the  correctness  of  their  opinions,  they 
dare  not  close  their  eyes  to  the  questions  which  are  being 
asked  in  louder  and  even  louder  tones  ;  and  they  have  a 
right  to  demand  that  they  shall  not  be  left  to  their  own 
unaided  efforts  to  answer  such  questions.  We  go  to  our 
appointed  teachers  as  to  our  physicians  ;  we  say  to  them, 
"  We  feel  pain  here,  andvhere,  and  here ;  we  do  not  see 
our  way,  and  we  require  you  to  help  us." 

Most  of  these  perplexities  are  not  new :  they  wdre  felt 
with  the  first  beginnings  of  critical  investigation  ;  but  the 
fact  that  they  have  been  so  many  years  before  the  world 
without  being  satisfactorily  encountered,  makes  the  situa- 
tion only  the  more  serious.  It  is  the  more  strange  that  as 
time  passes  on,  and  divine  after  divine  is  raised  to  honor 
and  office  for  his  theological  services,  we  should  find  only 
when  we  turn  to  their  writings  that  loud  promises  end  in 
no  performance  ;  that  the  chief  object  which  they  set  be- 
fore themselves  is  to  avoid  difficult  ground ;  and  that  the 
points  on  which  Ave  most  cry  out  for  satisfaction  are  passed 
over  in  silence,  or  are  disposed  of  with  ineffectual  common- 
places. 

With  a  temperament  constitutionally  religious,  and  with 
an  instinctive  sense  of  the  futility  of  theological  controver- 
sies, the  English  people  have  long  kept  the  enemy  at  bay 
by  passive  repugnance.  To  the  well-conditioned  English 
layman  the  religion  in  which  he  has  been  educated  is  part 
of  the  law  of  the  land ;  the  truth  of  it  js  assumed  in  the 
first  principles  of  his  personal  and  social  existence  ;  and 
attacks  on  the  credibility  of  his  sacred  books  he  has  re- 
garded with  the  same  impatience  and  disdain  with  which 
he  treats  speculations  on  the  rights  of  property  or  the  com- 
mon maxims  of  right  and  wrong.  Thus,  while  the  inspira- 


206  Criticism  and  the  Gospel  History. 

tion  of  the  Bible  has  been  a  subject  of  discussion  for  a 
century  in  Germany,  Holland,  and  France ;  while  even  in 
the  desolate  villages  in  the  heart  of  Spain  the  priests  find 
it  necessary  to  placard  the  church  walls  with  cautions 
against  rationalism,  England  hitherto  has  escaped  the  trial ; 
and  it  is  only  within  a  very  few  years  that  the  note  of  specu- 
lation has  compelled  our  deaf  ears  to  listen.  That  it  has 
come  at  last  is  less  a  matter  of  surprise  than  that  it  should 
have  been  so  long  delayed ;  and  though  slow  to  move,  it  is 
likely  that  so  serious  a  people  will  not  now  rest  till  they 
have  settled  the  matter  for  themselves  in  some  practical 
way.  We  are  assured  that  if  the  truth  be,  as  we  are  told, 
of  vital  moment,  —  vital  to  all  alike,  wise  and  foolish,  edu- 
cated and  uneducated,  —  the  road  to  it  cannot  lie  through 
any  very  profound  inquiries.  We  refuse  to  believe  that 
every  laborer  or  mechanic  must  balance  arduous  historical 
probabilities  and  come  to  a  just  conclusion,  under  pain  of 
damnation.  We  are  satisfied  that  these  poor  people  are 
not  placed  in  so  cruel  a  dilemma.  Either  these  abstruse 
historical  questions  are  open  questions,  and  we  are  not 
obliged  under  those  penalties  to  hold  a  definite  opinion 
upon  them,  or  else  there  must  be  some  general  principle 
accessible  and  easily  intelligible,  by  which  the  details  can 
be  summarily  disposed  of. 

We  shall  not  be  much  mistaken,  perhaps,  if  we  say  that 
the  view  of  most  educated  English  laymen  at  present  is 
something  of  this  kind.  They  are  aware  that  many  ques- 
tions may  be  asked,  difficult  or  impossible  to  answer  satis- 
factorily, about  the  creation  of  the  world,  the  flood,  and 
generally  on  the  historical  portion  of  the  Old  Testament ; 
but  they  suppose  that  if  the  authority  of  the  Gospel  history- 
can  be  well  ascertained,  the  rest  may  and  must  be  taken 
for  granted.  If  it  be  true  that  of  the  miraculous  birth,  life, 
death,  and  resurrection  of  our  Lord,  we  have  the  evidence 
of  two  evangelists  who  were  eye-witnesses  of  the  facts 
which  they  relate,  and  of  two  others  who  wrote  \mder  the 


Criticism  and  the  Q-ospcl  History.  207 

direction  of,  or  upon  the  authority  of,  eye-witnesses,  we  can 
afford  to  dispense  with  merely  curious  inquiries.  The  sub- 
ordinate parts  of  a  divine  economy  which  culminated  in  so 
stupendous  a  mystery  may  well  be  as  marvelous  as  itself; 
and  it  may  be  assumed,  we  think,  with  no  great  want  of 
charity,  that  those  who  doubt  the  truth  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment extend  their  incredulity  to  the  New ;  that  the  point 
of  their  disbelief,  towards  which  they  are  trenching  their 
way  through  the  weak  places  in  the  Pentateuch,  is  the 
Gospel  narrative  itself.1  Whatever  difficulty  there  may  be 
in  proving  the  ancient  Hebrew  books  to  be  the  work  of  the 
writers  whose  names  they  bear,  no  one  would  have  cared 
to  challenge  their  genuineness  who  was  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  the  resurrection  of  our  Lord.  And  the  real 
object  of  these  speculations  lies  open  before  us  in  the  now 
notorious  work  of  M.  Renan,  which  is  shooting  through 
Europe  with  a  rapidity  which  recalls  the  era  of  Luther. 

To  the  question  of  the  authenticity  of  the  Gospels, 
therefore,  the  common  sense  of  Englishmen  has  instiix  t- 
ively  turned.  If,  as  English  commentators  confidently  tell 
us,  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  such  as  we  now  possess  it, 
is  undoubtedly  the  work  of  the  publican  who  followed  our 
Lord  from  the  receipt  of  custom,  and  remained  with  him 
to  be  a  witness  of  his  ascension  ;  if  St.  John's  Gospel  was 
written  by  the  beloved  disciple  who  lay  on  Jesus'  breast  at 
supper ;  if  the  other  two  were  indeed  the  composition  of 
the  companions  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul ;  if  in  these 
four  Gospels  we  have  independent  accounts  of  our  Lord's 
life  and  passion,  mutually  confirming  each  other,  and  if  it 
can  be  proved  that  they  existed  and  were  received  as  au- 
thentic in  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  Church,  a 
stronger  man  than  M.  Renan  will  fail  to  shake  the  hold  of 
Christianity  in  England. 

We  put  the  question  hypothetically,  not  as  meaning  to 
suggest  the  fact  as  uncertain,  but  being  —  as  the  matter  is 
1  I  do  not  sneak  op  individuals ;  I  speak  of  tendency- 


208  Criticism  and  the  Crospet  History. 

of  infinite  moment  —  being,  as  it  were,  the  hinge  on  which 
our  faith  depends,  we  are  forced  beyond  our  office  to  tres- 
pass on  ground  which  we  leave  usually  to  professional  the- 
ologians, and  to  tell  them  plainly  that  there  are  difficulties 
which  it  is  their  business  to  clear  up,  but  to  which,  with 
worse  than  imprudence,  they  close  their  own  eyes,  and  de- 
liberately endeavor  to  keep  them  from  ours.  Some  of  these 
it  is  the  object  of  this  paper  to  point  out,  with  an  earnest 
hope  that  Dean  Alford,  or  Dr.  Ellicott,  or  some  other  com- 
petent clergyman,  may  earn  our  gratitude  by  telling  us 
what  to  think  about  them.  Setting  aside  their  duty  to  us, 
they  will  find  frank  dealing  in  the  long  run  their  wisest 
policy.  The  conservative  theologians  of  England  have 
carried  silence  to  the  point  of  indiscretion. 

Looking,  then,  to  the  first  three  Gospels,  usually  called 
the  Synoptical,  we  are  encountered  immediately  with  a  re- 
markable common  element  which  runs  through  them  all  — 
a  resemblance  too  peculiar  to  be  the  result  of  accident,  and 
impossible  to  reconcile  with  the  theory  that  the  writers 
were  independent  of  each  other.  It  is  not  that  general 
similarity  which  we  should  expect  in  different  accounts  of 
the  same  scenes  and  events,  but,  amidst  many  differences, 
a  broad  vein  of  circumstantial  identity  extending  both  to 
substance  and  expression. 

And  the  identity  is  of  several  kinds. 

I.  Although  the  three  evangelists  relate  each  of  them 
some  things  peculiar  to  themselves,  and  although  between 
them  there  are  some  striking  divergencies  —  as,  for  in- 
stance, between  the  account  of  our  Lord's  miraculous  birth 
in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke,  and  in  the  absence  in  St. 
Mark  of  any  mention  of  the  miraculous  birth  at  all  — 
nevertheless,  the  body  of  the  story  is  essentially  the  same. 
Out  of  those  words  and  actions  —  so  many,  that  if  all  were 
related  the  world  itself  could  not  contain  the  books  that 
snould  be  written  —  the  three  evangelists  select  for  the 
most  part  tne  same ;  tne  same  parables,  the  same  miracles, 


Criticism  and  the   Gospel  History.  209 

and,  more  or  less  complete,  the  same  addresses.  When 
the  material  from  which  to  select  was  so  abundant  —  how 
abundant  we  have  but  to  turn  to  the  fourth  evangelist  to 
see  —  it  is  at  least  singular  that  three  writers  should  have 
made  so  nearly  the  same  choice. 

II.  But  this  is  not  all.  Not  only  are  the  things  related 
the  same,  but  the  language  in  which  they  ai*e  expressed  is 
the  same.  Sometimes  the  resemblance  is  such  as  would 
have  arisen  had  the  evangelists  been  translating  from  a 
common  document  in  another  language.  Sometimes,  and 
most  frequently,  there  is  an  absolute  verbal  identity  ;  sen- 
tences, paragraphs,  long  passages,  arc  word  for  word  the 
very  same ;  a  few  expressions  have  been  slightly  varied,  a 
particle  transposed,  a  tense  or  a  case  altered,  but  the  differ- 
ences being  no  greater  than  would  arise  if  a  number  of 
persons  were  to  write  from  memory  some  common  passages 
which  they  knew  almost  by  heart.  That  there  should  have 
been  this  identity  in  the  account  of  the  words  used  by  our 
Lord  seems  at  first  sight  no  more  than  we  should  expect. 
But  it  extends  to  the  narrative  as  well ;  and  with  respect 
to  the  parables  and  discourses,  there  is  this  extraordinary 
feature,  that  whereas  our  Lord  is  supposed  to  have  spoken 
in  the  ordinary  language  of  Palestine,  the  resemblance  be- 
tween the  evangelists  is  in  the  Greek  translation  of  them  ; 
and  how  unlikely  it  is  that  a  number  of  persons  in  trans- 
lating from  one  language  into  another  should  hit  by  acci- 
dent on  the  same  expressions,  the  simplest  experiment  will 
show. 

Now,  waiving  for  a  moment  the  inspiration  of  the  Gos- 
pels ;  interpreting  the  Bible,  to  use  Mr.  Jowett's  canon,  as 
any  other  book,  what  are  we  to  conclude  from  phenomena 
of  this  kind  ?  What  in  fact  do  we  conclude  when  we  en- 
counter them  elsewhere  ?  In  the  lives  of  the  saints,  in  the 
monkish  histories,  there  are  many  parallel  cases.  A  me- 
diaeval chronicler,  when  he  found  a  story  well  told  by  his 
predecessor,  seldom  cared  to  recompose  it ;  he  transcribed 
14 


210  Criticism  and  the   Gospel  History. 

the  words  as  they  stood  into  his  own  narrative,  contented 
perhaps  with  making  a  few  trifling  changes  to  add  a  finish 
or  a  polish.  Sometimes  two  chroniclers  borrow  from  a 
third.  There  is  the  same  identity  in  particular  expressions, 
the  same  general  resemblance,  the  same  divergence,  as 
each  improves  his  original  from  his  independent  knowledge 
by  addition  or  omission  ;  but  the  process  is  so  transparent, 
that  when  the  original  is  lost,  the  existence  of  it  can  be  in- 
ferred with  certainty. 

Or  to  take  a  more  modern  parallel,  —  we  must  entreat 
our  readers»to  pardon  any  seeming  irreverence  which  may 
appear  in  the  comparison,  —  if  in  the  letters  of  the  corre- 
spondents of  three  different  newspapers  written  from  Amer- 
ica or  Germany,  we  were  to  read  the  same  incidents  told 
in  the  same  language,  surrounded  it  might  be  with  much 
that  was  unlike,  but  nevertheless  in  themselves  identical, 
and  related  in  words  which,  down  to  unusual  and  remarka- 
ble tenns  of  expression,  were  exactly  the  same,  what  should 
we  infer  ? 

Suppose,  for  instance,  the  description  of  a  battle ;  if  we 
were  to  find  but  a  single  paragraph  in  which  two  out  of 
three  correspondents  agreed  verbally,  we  should  regard  it 
as  a  very  strange  coincidence.  If  all  three  agreed  verbally, 
we  should  feel  certain  it  was  more  than  accident.  If  through- 
out their  letters  there  was  a  recurring  series  of  such  passa- 
ges, no  doubt  would  be  left  in  the  mind  of  any  one  that 
either  the  three  correspondents  had  seen  each  other's  let- 
ters, or  that  each  had  had  before  him  some  common  narra- 
tive which  he  had  incorporated  in  his  own  account.  It 
might  be  doubtful  which  of  these  two  explanations  was  the 
true  one ;  but  that  one  or  other  of  them  was  true,  unless  we 
suppose  a  miracle,  is  as  certain  as  any  conclusion  in  human 
things  can  be  certain  at  all.  The  sworn  testimony  of  eye- 
witnesses who  had  seen  the  letters  so  composed  would  add 
nothing  to  the  weight  of  a  proof  which  without  their  evi- 
dence would  be  overwhelming  ;  and  were  the  writers  them- 


Criticism  and  the  Gospel  History.  211 

selves,  with  their  closest  friends  and  companions,  to  swear 
that  there  had  been  no  intercommunication,  and  no  story 
preexisting  of  which  they  had  made  use,  and  that  each  had 
written  bond  Jide  from  his  own  original  observation,  an 
English  jury  would  sooner  believe  the  whole  party  perjured 
than  persuade  themselves  that  so  extraordinary  a  coinci- 
dence would  have  occurred. 

Nor  would  it  be  difficult  to  ascertain  from  internal  evi- 
dence which  of  the  two  possible  interpretations  was  the 
real  one.  If  the  writers  were  men  of  evident  good  faith  ; 
if  their  stones  were  in  parts  widely  different ;  if  they  made 
no  allusion  to  each  other,  nor  ever  referred  to  one  another 
as  authorities ;  finally,  if  neither  of  them,  in  giving  a  dif- 
ferent account  of  any  matter  from  that  given  by  his  com- 
panions, professed  either  to  be  supplying  an  omission  or 
correcting  a  mistake,  then  we  should  have  little  doubt  that 
they  had  themselves  not  communicated  with  each  other, 
but  were  supplementing,  each  of  them  from  other  sources 
of  information,  a  central  narrative  which  all  alike  had 
before  them. 

How  far  may  we  apply  the  parallel  to  the  Synoptical 
Gospels?  In  one  sense  the  inspiration  lifts  them  above 
comparison,  and  disposes  summarily  of  critical  perplexities ; 
there  is  no  difficulty  which  may  not  be  explained  by  a 
miracle  ;  and  in  that  aspect  the  points  of  disagreement 
between  these  accounts  are  more  surprising  than  the  sim- 
ilarities. It  is  on  the  disagreements  in  fact  that  the  labors 
of  commentators  have  chiefly  been  expended.  Yet  it  is  a 
question  whether,  on  the  whole,  inspiration  does  not  leave 
unaffected  the  ordinary  human  phenomena  ;  and  it  is  hard 
to  suppose  that  where  the  rules  of  judgment  in  ordinary 
writings  are  so  distinct,  God  would  have  thus  purposely 
cast  a  stumbling-block  in  our  way,  and  contrived  a  snare 
into  which  our  reason  should  mislead  us.  That  is  hard  to 
credit ;  yet  that  and  nothing  else  we  must  believe  if  we 
refuse  to  apply  to  the  Gospel  the  same  canons  of  criticism 


212  Criticism  and  the   Gospel  History. 

which  with  other  writings  would  be  a  guide  so  decisive.  It 
may  be  assumed  that  the  facts  connected  with  them  admit 
a  natural  explanation  ;  and  we  arrive,  therefore,  at  the  same 
conclusion  as  before  :  that  either  two  of  the  evangelists 
borrowed  from  the  third,  or  else  that  there  was  some  other 
Gospel  besides  those  which  are  now  extant ;  existing  per- 
haps both  in  Hebrew  and  Greek,  —  existing  certainly  in 
Greek,  —  the  fragments  of  which  are  scattered  up  and 
down  through  St.  Mark,  St.  Matthew,  and  St.  Luke,  in 
masses  sufficiently  large  to  be  distinctly  recognizable. 

That  at  an  early  period  in  the  Christian  Church  many 
such  Gospels  existed,  we  know  certainly  from  the  words  of 
St.  Luke.  St.  Paul  alludes  to  words  used  by  our  Lord 
which  are  not  mentioned  by  the  evangelists,  which  he 
assumed  nevertheless  to  be  well  known  to  his  hearers.  He 
speaks,  too,  of  an  appearance  of  our  Lord  after  his  resur- 
rection to  five  hundred  brethren ;  on  which  the  four 
Gospels  are  also  silent.  It  is  indisputable,  therefore,  that 
besides  and  antecedent  to  them  there  were  other  accounts 
of  our  Lord's  life  in  use  in  the  Christian  Church.  And  in- 
deed, what  more  natural,  what  more  necessary,  than  that 
from  the  day  on  which  the  Apostles  entered  upon  their 
public  mission,  some  narrative  should  have  been  drawn 
up  of  the  facts  which  they  were  about  to  make  known  ? 
Then  as  little  as  now  could  the  imagination  of  men  be 
trusted  to  relate  accurately  a  story  composed  of  stupen- 
dous miracles  without  mistake  or  exaggeration  ;  and  their 
very  first  step  would  have  been  to  compose  an  account  of 
what  had  passed,  to  which  they  could  speak  with  certainty, 
and  which  they  could  invest  with  authoritative  sanction.  Is 
it  not  possible  then  that  the  identical  passages  in  the  Syn- 
optical Gospels  are  the  remains  of  something  of  this  kind, 
which  the  evangelists,  in  their  later,  fuller,  and  more  com- 
plete histories,  enlarged  and  expanded  ?  The  conjecture 
has  been  often  made,  and  English  commentators  have  for 
the  most  part  dismissed  it  slightingly ;  not  apparently  being 


Criticism  and  .the   Gospel  History.  213 

aware  that  in  rejecting  one  hypothesis  they  were  bound  to 
suggest  another  ;  or  at  least  to  admit  that  there  was  some- 
thing which  required  explanation,  though  this  particular 
suggestion  did  not  seem  satisfactory.  Yet  if  it  were  so, 
the  external  testimony  for  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  history 
would  be  stronger  than  before.  It  would  amount  to  the 
collective  view  of  the  first  congregation  of  Christians,  who 
had  all  immediate  and  personal  knowledge  of  our  Lord's 
miracles  and  death  and  resurrection. 

But  perhaps  the  external  history  of  the  four  Gospels 
may  throw  some  light  upon  the  question,  if  indeed  we  can 
speak  of  light  where  all  is  a  cloud  of  uncertainty.  It 
would  seem  as  if  the  sources  of  Christianity,  like  the  roots 
of  all  other  living  things,  were  purposely  buried  in  mystery. 
There  exist  no  ancient  writings  whatever  of  such  vast 
moment  to  mankind  of  which  so  little  can  be  authentically 
known. 

The  four  Gospels,  in  the  form  and  under  the  names 
which  they  at  present  bear,  become  visible  only  with  dis- 
tinctness towards  the  end  of  the  second  century  of  the 
Christian  era.  Then  it  was  that  they  assumed  the  author- 
itative position  which  they  have  ever  since  maintained,  and 
were  selected  by  the  Church  out  of  the  many  other  then 
existing  narratives  as  the  supreme  and  exclusive  authorities 
for  our  Lord's  life.  Irenaeus  is  the  first  of  the  Fathers  in 
whom  they  are  found  attributed  by  name  to  St.  Matthew, 
St.  Mark,  St.  Luke,  and  St.  John.  That  there  were  four 
true  evangelists,  and  tliat  there  could  be  neither  more  nor 
less  than  four,  Irenaeus  had  persuaded  himself  because 
there  were  four  winds  or  spirits,  and  four  divisions  of  the 
earth,  for  which  the  Church  being  universal  required  four 
columns  ;  because  the  cherubim  had  four  faces,  to  each  of 
which  an  evangelist  corresponded  ;  because  four  covenants 
had  been  given  to  mankind  —  one  before  the  Deluge  in 
Adam,  one  after  the  Deluge  in  Noah,  the  third  in  Moses, 
the  fourth  and  greatest  in  the  New  Testament ;  while  again 


214  Criticism  and  the   Gospd  History. 

the  name  of  Adam  was  composed  of  four  letters.  It  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  the  intellects  of  those  great  men  who 
converted  the  world  to  Christianity  were  satisfied  with 
arguments  so  imaginative  as  these ;  they  must  have  had 
other  closer  and  more  accurate  grounds  for  their  decision  ; 
but  the  mere  employment  of  such  figures  as  evidence  in 
any  sense,  shows  the  enormous  difference  between  their 
modes  of  reasoning  and  ours,  and  illustrates  the  difficulty 
of  deciding  at  our  present  distance  from  them  how  far 
their  conclusions  were  satisfactory. 

Of  the  Gospels  separately  the  history  is  immediately  lost 
in  legend. 

The  first  notice  of  a  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew  is  in  the 
well-known  words  of  Papias,  a  writer  who  in  early  life 
might  have  seen  St.  John.  The  works  of  Papias  are  lost 
—  a  misfortune  the  more  to  be  regretted  because  Euse- 
bius  speaks  of  him  as  a  man  of  very  limited  understand- 
ing, TTO.VV  0-p.iKpos  rov  vow.  Understanding  and  folly  are 
words  of  undetermined  meaning ;  and  when  language  like 
that  of  Irenaeus  could  seem  profound  it  is  quite  possible  that 
Papias  might  have  possessed  commonplace  faculties  which 
would  have  been  supremely  useful  to  us.  A  surviving 
fragment  of  him  says  that  St.  Matthew  put  together  the 
discourses  of  our  Lord  in  Hebrew,  and  that  every  one  in- 
terpreted them  as  he  could.  Pantaenus,  said  by  Eusebius 
to  have  been  another  contemporary  of  the  Apostles,  was 
reported  to  have  gone  to  India,  to  have  found  there  a  con- 
gregation of  Christians  which  had  been  established  by  St. 
Bartholomew,  and  to  have  seen  in  use  among  them  this  He- 
brew Gospel.  Origen  repeats  the  story,  which  in  his  time 
had  become  the  universal  Catholic  tradition,  that  St.  Mat- 
thew's was  the  first  Gospel,  that  it  was  written  in  Hebrew, 
and  that  it  was  intended  for  the  use  of  the  Jewish  converts. 
Jerome  adds  that  it  was  unknown  when  or  by  whom  it  was 
rendered  into  a  Greek  version.  That  was  all  which  the 
Church  had  to  say ;  and  what  had  become  of  that  Hebrevr 
original  no  one  could  tell. 


Criticism  and  the   G-ospel  History.  215 

That  there  existed  a  Hebrew  Gospel  in  very  early  times 
is  well  authenticated ;  there  was  a  gospel  called  the  Gospel 
of  the  Ebionites  or  Nazarenes,  of  which  Origen  possessed 
a  copy,  and  which  St.  Jerome  thought  it  worth  while  to 
translate ;  this  too  is  lost,  and  Jerome's  translation  of  it 
also  ;  but  the  negative  evidence  seems  conclusive  that  it 
was  not  the  lost  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew.  Had  it  been  so 
it  could  not  have  failed  to  be  recognized,  although  from 
such  accounts  of  it  as  have  been  preserved,  it  possessed 
some  affinity  with  St.  Matthew's  Gospel.  In  one  instance 
indeed  it  gave  the  right  reading  of  a  text  which  has  per- 
plexed orthodox  commentators,  and  has  induced  others  to 
suspect  that  that  Gospel  in  its  present  form  could  not  have 
existed  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  The  Zacha- 
riah  the  son  of  Barachiah  said  by  St.  Matthew  to  have  been 
slain  between  the  temple  and  the  altar,  is  unknown  to  Old 
Testament  history,  while  during  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  a 
Zachariah  the  son  of  Barachiah  actually  was  killed  exactly 
in  the  manner  described.  But  in  the  Ebionite  Gospel  the 
same  words  are  found  with  this  slight  but  important  differ- 
ence, that  the  Zachariah  in  question  is  there  called  the  son 
of  Jehoiadah,  and  is  at  once  identified  with  the  person 
whose  murder  is  related  in  the  Second  Book  of  Chroni- 
cles. The  later  translator  of  St.  Matthew  had  probably 
confused  the  names. 

Of  St.  Mark's  Gospel  the  history  is  even  more  profoundly 
obscure.  Papias,  again  the  highest  discoverable  link  of 
the  Church  tradition,  says  that  St.  Mark  accompanied  St. 
Peter  to  Rome  as  his  interpreter ;  and  that  while  there  he 
wrote  down  what  St.  Peter  told  him,  or  what  he  could  re- 
member St.  Peter  to  have  said.  Clement  of  Alexandria 
enlarges  the  story.  According  to  Clement,  when  St.  Peter 
was  preaching  at  Rome  the  Christian  congregation  there 
requested  St.  Mark  to  write  a  gospel  for  them ;  St.  Mark 
complied  without  acquainting  St.  Peter,  and  St.  Peter, 
when  informed  of  it,  was  uncertain  whether  to  give  or 


216  Criticism  and  the   Gospel  History. 

withhold  his  sanction  till  his  mind  was  set  at  rest  by  a 
vision. 

Irenaeus,  on  the  other  hand,  says  that  St.  Mark's  Gospel 
was  not  written  till  after  the  death  of  St.  Peter  and  St. 
Paul.  St.  Chrysostom  says  that  after  it  was  written  St. 
Mark  went  to  Egypt  and  published  it  at  Alexandria ; 
Epiphanius  again,  that  the  Egyptian  expedition  was  under- 
taken at  the  express  direction  of  St.  Peter  himself. 

Thus  the  Church  tradition  is  inconsistent  with  itself,  and 
in  all  probability  is  nothing  but  a  structure  of  air ;  it  is 
bound  up  with  the  presence  of  St.  Peter  at  Rome  ;  and  the 
only  ground  for  supposing  that  St.  Peter  was  ever  at  Rome 
at  all  is  the  passage  at  the  close  of  St.  Peter's  First  Epis- 
tle, where  it  pleased  the  Fathers  to  assume  that  the 
"  Babylon  "  there  spoken  of  must  have  been  the  city  of  the 
Caesars.  This  passage  alone,  with  the  wild  stories  (now 
known  to  have  originated  in  the  misreading  of  an  inscrip- 
tion) of  St.  Peter's  conflict  with  Simon  Magus  in  the 
presence  of  the  emperor,  form  together  the  light  and  airy 
arches  on  which  the  huge  pretenses  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  have  reared  themselves.  If  the  Babylon  of  the 
Epistle  was  Babylon  on  the  Euphrates  —  and  there  is  not 
the  slightest  historical  reason  to  suppose  it  to  have  been 
any  thing  else  —  the  story  of  the  origin  of  St.  Mark's  Gos- 
pel perishes  with  the  legend  to  which  it  was  inseparably 
attached  by  Church  tradition. 

Of  St.  John's  Gospel  we  do  not  propose  to  speak  in  this 
place  ;  it  forms  a  subject  by  itself;  and  of  that  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  the  defects  of  external  evidence  which  undoubt- 
edly exist  seem  overborne  by  the  overwhelming  proofs  of 
authenticity  contained  in  the  Gospel  itself. 

The  faint  traditionary  traces  which  inform  us  that  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Mark  were  supposed  to  have  written 
Gospels  fail  us  with  St.  Luke.  The  apostolic  and  the  im- 
mediately post-apostolic  Fathers  never  mention  Luke  as 
having  written  a  history  of  our  Lord  at  all.  There  was 


Criticism  and  the   Gospel  History.  217 

indeed  a  Gospel  in  use  among  the  Marcionites  which  re- 
sembled that  of  St.  Luke,  as  the  Gospel  of  the  Ebionites 
resembled  that  of  St.  Matthew.  In  both  the  one  and  the 
other  there  was  no  mention  of  our  Lord's  miraculous  birth  ; 
and  later  writers  accused  Marcion  of  having  mutilated  St. 
Luke.  But  apparently  their  only  reason  for  thinking  so 
was  that  the  two  Gospels  were  like  each  other ;  and  for  all 
that  can  be  historically  proved,  the  Gospel  of  the  Marcion- 
ites may  have  been  the  older  of  the  two.  What  is  wanting 
externally,  however,  is  supposed  to  be  more  than  made  up 
by  the  language  of  St.  Luke  himself.  The  Gospel  was  evi- 
dently composed  in  its  present  form  by  the  same  person 
who  wrote  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  In  the  latter  part  of 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  the  writer  speaks  in  the  first  per- 
son as  the  companion  of  St.  Paul ;  and  the  date  of  this 
Gospel  seems  to  be  thus  conclusively  fixed  at  an  early 
period  in  the  apostolic  age.  There  is  at  least  a  high  prob- 
ability that  this  reasoning  is  sound;  yet  it  has  seemed 
strange  that  a  convert  so  eminent  as  "  the  most  excellent " 
Theophilus,  to  whom  St.  Luke  addressed  himself,  should 
be  found  impossible  to  identify.  "  Most  excellent "  was  a 
title  given  only  to  persons  of  high  rank  ;  and  it  is  singular 
that  St.  Paul  himself  should  never  have  mentioned  so  con- 
siderable a  name.  And  again  there  is  something  peculiar 
in  the  language  of  the  introduction  to  the  Gospel  itself. 
Though  St.  Luke  professes  to  be  writing  on  the  authority  of 
eye-witnesses,  he  does  not  say  he  had  spoken  with  eye-wit- 
nesses ;  so  far  from  it,  that  the  word  translated  in  the  Eng- 
lish version  "  delivered  "  is  literally  "  handed  down  ; "  it  is 
the  verb  which  corresponds  to  the  technical  expression  for 
"  tradition  ; "  and  the  words  translated  "  having  had  perfect 
understanding  of  all  things  from  the  first "  might  be  rendered 
more  properly  "  having  traced  or  followed  up  all  things  from 
the  beginning."  And  again,  as  it  is  humanly  speaking  cer- 
tain that  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel  there  are  passages,  however 
they  are  to  be  explained,  which  were  embodied  in  it  from 


218  Criticism  and  the   Gospel  History. 

some  other  source  ;  so,  though  extremely  probable,  it  is  not 
absolutely  certain  that  those  passages  in  the  Acts  in  which 
the  writer  speaks  in  the  first  person  are  by  the  same  hand 
as  the  body  of  the  narrative.  If  St.  Luke  had  anywhere 
directly  introduced  himself —  if  he  had  said  plainly  that 
he,  the  writer  who  was  addressing  Theophilus,  had  person- 
ally joined  St.  Paul,  and  in  that  part  of  his  story  was  re- 
lating what  he  had  seen  and  heard  —  there  would  be  no 
room  for  uncertainty.  But,  so  far  as  we  know,  there  is  no 
other  instance  in  literature  of  a  change  of  person  intro- 
duced abruptly  without  explanation.  The  whole  book  is 
less  a  connected  history  than  a  series  of  episodes  and  frag- 
ments of  the  proceedings  of  the  Apostles  ;  and  it  is  to  be 
noticed  that  the  account  of  St.  Paul's  conversion,  as  given 
in  its  place  in  the  first  part  of  the  narrative,  differs  in  one 
material  point  from  the  second  account  given  later  in  the 
part  which  was  unquestionably  the  work  of  one  of  St. 
Paul's  companions.  There  is  a  possibility  —  it  amounts  to 
no  more,  and  the  suggestion  is  thrown  out  for  the  consid- 
eration of  those  who  are  better  able  than  this  writer  to 
judge  of  it  —  that  in  the  Gospel  and  the  Acts  we  have 
the  work  of  a  careful  editor  of  the  second  century.  Towards 
the  close  of  that  century  a  prominent  actor  in  the  great 
movement  which  gave  their  present  authority  to  the  four 
Gospels  was  Theophilus,  Bishop  of  Antioch  ;  he  it  was  who 
brought  them  together,  incorporated  into  a  single  work  — 
in  unum  opus ;  and  it  may  be,  after  all,  that  in  him  we 
have  the  long-sought  person  to  whom  St.  Luke  was  writ- 
ing ;  that  the  Gospel  which  we  now  possess  was  compiled 
at  his  desire  out  of  other  imperfect  Gospels  in  use  in  the 
different  churches ;  and  that  it  formed  a  part  of  his  scheme 
to  supersede  them  by  an  account  more  exhaustive,  com- 
plete, and  satisfactory. 

To  this  hypothesis  indeed  there  is  an  answer  which  if 
valid  at  all  is  absolutely  fatal.  We  are  told  that  although 
the  names  of  the  writers  of  the  Gospels  may  rot  be  men- 


Criticism  and  the  Gospel  History.  219 

tioned  until  a  comparatively  late  period,  yet  that  the  Gos- 
pels themselves  can  be  shown  to  have  existed,  because 
they  are  habitually  quoted  in  the  authentic  writings  of  the 
earliest  of  the  Fathers.  If  this  be  so,  the  slightness  of 
the  historical  thread  is  of  little  moment,  and  we  may  rest 
safely  on  the  solid  ground  of  so  conclusive  a  fact.  But  is 
it  so  ?  That  the  early  Fathers  quoted  some  accounts  of 
our  Lord's  life  is  abundantly  clear ;  but  did  Aey  quote 
these  ?  We  proceed  to  examine  this  question  —  again  ten- 
tatively only  —  we  do  but  put  forward  certain  considera- 
tions on  which  we  ask  for  fuller  information. 

If  any  one  of  the  primitive  Christian  writers  was  likely 
to  have  been  acquainted  with  the  authentic  writings  of  the 
evangelists,  that  one  was  indisputably  Justin  Martyr.  Born 
in  Palestine  in  the  year  89,  Justin  Martyr  lived  to  the  age 
of  seventy-six ;  he  travelled  over  the  Roman  world  as  a 
missionary ;  and  intellectually  he  was  more  than  on  a  level 
with  most  educated  Oriental  Christians.  He  was  the  first 
distinctly  controversial  writer  which  the  Church  produced  ; 
and  the  great  facts  of  the  Gospel  history  were  obviously  as 
well  known  to  him  as  they  are  to  ourselves.  There  are  no 
traces  in  his  writings  of  an  acquaintance  with  any  thing 
peculiar  either  to  St.  John  or  St.  Mark ;  but  there  are  ex- 
tracts in  abundance,  often  identical  with  and  generally 
nearly  resembling  passages  in'  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke. 
Thus  at  first  sight  it  would  be  difficult  to  doubt  that  with 
these  two  Gospels  at  least  he  was  intimately  familiar.  And 
yet  in  all  his  citations  there  is  this  peculiarity,  that  Justin 
Martyr  never  speaks  of  either  of  the  evangelists  by  name ; 
he  quotes  or  seems  to  quote  invaiiably  from  something 
which  he  calls  <j.Tro/j.vrliJ.m'evp.a.Ta  TO>V  'ATrosroAwy,  or  "  Me- 
moirs of  the  Apostles."  It  is  no  usual  habit  of  his  to  de- 
scribe his  authorities  vaguely ;  when  he  quotes  the  Apoc- 
alypse he  names  St.  John  ;  when  he  refers  to  a  prophet  he 
specifies  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  or  Daniel.  Why,  unless  there 
was  some  particular  reason  for  it,  should  he  use  so  singu- 


220  Criticism  and  the  G-ospd  Hhtory. 

lar  an  expression  whenever  he  alludes  to  the  sacred  history 
of  the  New  Testament  ?  why,  if  he  knew  the  names  of  the 
evangelists,  did  he  never  mention  them  even  by  accident  ? 
Nor  is  this  the  only  singularity  in  Justin  Martyr's  quota- 
tions. There  are  those  slight  differences  between  them 
and  the  text  of  the  Gospels  which  appear  between  the 
Gospels  themselves.  When  we  compare  an  extract  in 
Justin  wi^h  the  parallel  passage  in  St.  Matthew,  we  find 
often  that  it  differs  from  St.  Matthew  just  as  St.  Matthew 
differs  from  St.  Luke,  or  both  from  St.  Mark  —  great  ver- 
bal similarity  —  many  paragraphs  agreeing  word  for  word 

—  and  then  other  paragraphs  where  there  is  an  alteration 
of  expression,  tense,  order,  or  arrangement. 

Again,  just  as  in  the  midst  of  the  general  resemblance 
between  the  Synoptical  Gospels,  each  evangelist  has  some- 
thing of  his  own  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  others,  so 
in  these  ''Memoirs  of  the  Apostles"  there  are  facts  un- 
known to  either  of  the  evangelists.  In  the  account  ex- 
tracted by  Justin  from  "  the  Memoirs  "  of  the  baptism  in  the 
Jordan,  the  words  heard  from  heaven  are  not  as  St.  Mat- 
thew gives  them,  —  "  Thou  art  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I 
am  well  pleased,"  —  but  the  words  of  the  psalm,  "  Thou 
art  my  Son,  this  day  have  I  begotten  Thee  ; "  a  reading 
which,  singularly  enough,  was  to  be  found  in  the  Gospel  of 
the  Ebionites. 

Another  curious  addition  to  the  same  scene  is  in  the 
words  Kai  -vp  avrj<f>6r)  cV  lopSarfl,  "  and  a  fire  was  kindled 
in  Jordan." 

Again.  Justin  Martyr  speaks  of  our  Lord  having  prom- 
ised "  to  clothe  us  with  garments  made  ready  for  us  if  we 
keep  his  commandments  "  —  KOL  auvviov  /Sao-iAcou-  Trpoi-orjo-ai 

—  whatever  those  words  may  precisely  mean. 

These  and  other  peculiarities  in  Justin  may  be  explained 
if  we  suppose  him  to  have  been  quoting  from  memory. 
The  evangelical  text  might  not  as  yet  have  acquired  its 
verbal  sanctity  ;  and  as  a  native  of  Palestine  he  might  well 


OritiiAsm  and  the   G-ospel  History.  221 

have  been  acquainted  with  other  traditions  which  lay  outside 
the  written  word.  The  silence  as  to  names,  however,  re- 
mains unexplained ;  and  as  the  facts  actually  stand  there 
is  the  same  kind  of  proof,  and  no  more,  that  Justin  Martyr 
was  acquainted  with  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke  as  there  is 
that  one  of  these  evangelists  made  extracts  from  the  other, 
or  both  from  St.  Mark.  So  long  as  one  set  of  commenta- 
tors decline  to  recognize  the  truth  of  this  relation  betwee. 
the  Gospels,  there  will  be  others  who  with  as  much  justice 
will  dispute  the  relation  of  Justin  to  them.  He  too  might 
have  used  another  Gospel,  which,  though  like  them,  was 
not  identical  with  them. 

After  Justin  Martyr's  death,  about  the  year  170,  appeared 
Tatian's  "  Diatessaron,"  a  work  which,  as  its  title  implies, 
was  a  harmony  of  four  Gospels,  and  most  likely  of  the 
four ;  yet  again  not  exactly  as  we  have  them.  Tatian's 
harmony,  like  so  many  others  of  the  early  evangelical  his- 
tories, was  silent  on  the  miraculous  birth,  and  commenced 
only  with  the  public  ministration.  The  text  was  in  other 
places  different,  so  much  so  that  Theodoret  accuses  Tatian 
of  having  mutilated  the  Gospels ;  but  of  this  Theodoret 
had  probably  no  better  means  of  judging  than  we  have. 
The  "  Diatessaron  "  has  been  long  lost,  and  the  name  is  the 
only  clew  to  its  composition. 

Of  far  more  importance  than  either  Justin  or  Tatian  are 
such  writings  as  remain  of  the  immediate  successors  of  the 
Apostles  —  Barnabas,  Clement  of  Rome,  Polycarp,  and 
Ignatius  :  it  is  asserted  confidently  that  in  these  there  ara 
quotations  from  the  Gospels  so  exact  that  they  cannot  be 
mistaken. 

We  will  examine  them  one  by  one. 

In  an  epistle  of  Barnabas  there  is  one  passage  —  it  is 
the  only  one  of  the  kind  to  be  found  in  him  —  agreeing 
word  for  word  with  the  Synoptical  Gospels  :  "  I  came  not  to 
call  the  righteous  but  sinners  to  repentance."  It  is  one  of 
the  many  passages  in  which  the  Greek  of  the  three  evan- 


222  Criticism  and  the   Gospel  History. 

gelists  is  exactly  the  same ;  it  was  to  be  found  also  in  Jus 
tin's  "  Memoirs ;  "  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Barna« 
bas  either  knew  those  Gospels  or  else  the  common  source  — • 
if  common  source  there  was  —  from  which  the  evangelists 
borrowed.  More  than  this  such  a  quotation  does  not  en- 
able us  to  say ;  and  till  some  satisfactory  explanation  has 
seen  offered  of  the  agreement  between  the  evangelists,  the 
argument  can  advance  no  further.  On  the  other  hand, 
Barnabas  like  St.  Paul  had  other  sources  from  which  he 
drew  his  knowledge  of  our  Lord's  words.  He  too  ascribes 
words  to  Him  which  are  not  recorded  by  the  evangelists. 
'Ir/aovr  01  ^eAovres  fJ.e  l&ew  /cat  ai^acr^ai  p.ov  TJ}S 
<£et'A.oucri  ^'AtySeires  /cat  7ra$orres  Xafieiv  /a.e.  The 
thought  is  everywhere  in  the  Gospels,  the  words  nowhere, 
nor  any  thing  like  them. 

Both  Ignatius  and  Polycarp  appear  to  quote  the  Gospels, 
yet  with  them  also  there  is  the  same  uncertainty  ;  while  Ig- 
natius quotes  as  genuine  an  expression  which,  so  far  as  we 
know,  was  peculiar  to  a  translation  of  the  Gospel  of  the 
Ebionites  —  "  Handle  me  and  see,  for  I  am  not  a  spirit 
without  body,"  on  owe  et/xt  Sai/xoviov  do~(u//.arov. 

Clement's  quotations  are  still  more  free,  for  Clement 
nowhere  quotes  the  text  of  the  evangelists  exactly  as  it  at 
present  stands  ;  often  he  approaches  it  extremely  close  ;  at 
times  the  agreement  is  rather  in  meaning  than  words,  as  if 
he  were  translating  from  another  language.  But  again 
Clement  more  noticeably  than  either  of  the  other  apostolic 
Fathers  cites  expressions  of  our  Lord  of  which  the  evan- 
gelists knew  nothing. 

For  instance  :  — 

"  The  Lord  saith,  '  If  ye  be  with  me  gathered  into  my 
bosom,  and  do  not  after  my  commandments,  I  will  cast  you 
off,  and  I  will  say  unto  you,  Depart  from  me,  I  know  you 
not,  ye  workers  of  iniquity.'  " 

And  again :  — 

"  The  Lord  said,  '  Ye  shall  be  as  sheep  in  the  midst  of 


Criticism  and  the   Gospel  History.  223 

wolves.'  Peter  answered  and  said  unto  him,  '  Will  the 
wolves  then  tear  the  sheep  ? '  Jesus  said  unto  Peter, 4  The 
sheep  need  not  fear  the  wolves  after  they  (the  sheep)  be 
dead :  and  fear  not  ye  those  who  kill  you  and  can  do 
nothing  to  you  ;  but  fear  Him  who  after  you  be  dead  hath 
power  over  soul  and  body  to  cast  them  into  hell-fire.' " 

In  these  words  we  seem  to  have  the  lost  link  in  a  pas- 
sage which  appears  in  a  different  connection  in  St.  Matthew 
and  St.  Luke.  It  may  be  said,  as  with  Justin  Martyr,  that 
Clement  was  quoting  from  memory  in  the  sense  rather  than 
in  the  letter  ;  although  even  so  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that 
he  could  have  invented  an  interlocution  of  St.  Peter.  Yet 
no  hypothesis  will  explain  the  most  strange  words  which 
follow :  — 

"  The  Lord  being  asked  when  His  kingdom  should  come, 
said,  '  "When  two  shall  be  one,  and  that  which  is  without  as 
that  which  is  within,  and  the  male  with  the  female  neither 
male  nor  female.' " 

It  is  needless  to  say  how  remote  are  such  expressions  as 
these  from  any  which  have  come  down  to  us  through  the 
evangelist ;  but  they  were  no  inventions  of% Clement.  The 
passage  reappears  later  in  Clement  of  Alexandria,  who 
found  it  in  something  which  he  called  the  Gospel  of  the 
Egyptians. 

It  will  be  urged  that  because  Clement  quoted  other  au- 
thorities beside  the  evangelists,  it  does  not  follow  that  he 
did  not  know  and  quote  from  them.  If  the  citation  of  a 
passage  which  appears  in  almost  the  same  words  in  another 
book  is  not  to  be  accepted  as  a  proof  of  an  acquaintance 
with  that  book,  we  make  it  impossible,  it  may  be  said,  to 
prove  from  quotations  at  all  the  fact  of  any  book's  exist- 
ence. But  this  is  not  the  case.  If  a  Father,  in  relating 
an  event  which  is  told  variously  in  tke  Synoptical  Gospels, 
had  followed  one  of  them  minutely  in  its  verbal  peculiari- 
ties, it  would  go  far  to  prove  that  he  was  acquainted  with 
that  one ;  if  the  same  thing  was  observed  in  all  his  quota- 


224  Criticism  and  the   Gospel 

tions,  the  proof  would  amount  to  demonstration.  If  he 
agreed  minutely  in  one  place  with  one  Gospel,  minutely  in 
a  second  with  another,  minutely  in  a  third  with  another, 
there  would  be  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  acquainted 
with  them  all ;  but  when  he  merely  relates  what  they  also 
relate  in  language  which  approaches  theirs  and  yet  dif- 
fers from  it,  as  they  also  resemble  yet  differ  from  one 
another,  we  do  not  escape  from  the  circle  of  uncertainty, 
and  we  conclude  either  that  the  early  Fathers  made  quota- 
tions with  a  looseness  irreconcilable  with  the  idea  that  the 
language  of  the  Gospels  possessed  any  verbal  sacredness 
to  them,  or  that  there  were  in  their  times  other  narratives 
of  our  Lord's  life  standing  in  the  same  relation  to  the  three 
Gospels  as  St.  Matthew  stands  to  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke. 

Thus  the  problem  returns  upon  us  ;  and  it  might  almost 
seem  as  if  the  explanation  was  laid  purposely  beyond  our 
reach.  "We  are  driven  back  upon  internal  criticism ;  and 
we  have  to  ask  again  what  account  is  to  be  given  of  that 
element  common  to  the  Synoptical  Gospels,  common  also 
to  those  other  Gospels  of  which  we  find  traces  so  distinct, 
—  those  verbal  resemblances,  too  close  to  be  the  effect  of 
accident,  —  those  differences  which  forbid  the  supposition 
that  the  evangelists  copied  one  another.  So  many  are 
those  common  passages,  that  if  all  which  is  peculiar  to  each 
evangelist  by  himself  were  dropped,  if  those  words  and 
those  actions  only  were  retained  which  either  all  three  or 
two  at  least  share  together,  the  figure  of  our  Lord  from 
His  baptism  to  His  ascension  would  remain  with  scarcely 
impaired  majesty. 

One  hypothesis,  and  so  far  as  we  can  see  one  only,  would 
make  the  mystery  intelligible,  that  immediately  on  the 
close  of  our  Lord's  life  some  original  sketch  of  it  was  drawn 
up  by  the  congregation,  which  gradually  grew  and  gathered 
round  it  whatever  his  mother,  his  relations,  or  his  disciples 
afterwards  individually  might  contribute.  This  primary 
history  would  thus  not  be  the  work  of  any  one  mind  or 


Criticism  and  the   Q-ospcl  History.  225 

man ;  it  would  be  the  joint  work  of  the  Church,  and  thus 
might  well  be  called  "  Memoirs  of  the  Apostles ; "  and 
would  naturally  be  quoted  without  the  name  of  either  one 
of  them  being  specially  attached  to  it.  As  Christianity 
spread  over  the  world,  and  separate  churches  were  founded 
by  particular  apostles,  copies  would  be  multiplied,  and 
copies  of  those  copies ;  and,  unchecked  by  the  presence 
(before  the  invention  of  printing  impossible)  of  any  author- 
itative text,  changes  would  creep  in,  —  passages  would  be 
left  out  which  did  not  suit  the  peculiar  views  of  this  or  that 
sect;  others  would  be  added  as  this  or  that  apostle  recol- 
lected something  which  our  Lord  had  said  that  bore  on 
questions  raised  in  the  development  of  the  creed.  Two 
great  divisions  would  form  themselves  between  the  Jewish 
and  the  Gentile  Churches  ;  there  would  be  a  Hebrew  Gos- 
pel and  a  Greek  Gospel,  and  the  Hebrew  would  be  trans- 
lated into  Greek,  as  Papias  says  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  was. 
Eventually  the  confusion  would  become  intolerable  ;  and 
among  the  conflicting  stories  the  Church  would  have  been 

o  o 

called  on  to  make  its  formal  choice. 

This  fact  at  least  is  certain  from  St.  Luke's  words,  that 
at  the  time  when  he  was  writing  many  different  narratives 
did  actually  exist.  The  hypothesis  of  a  common  origin  for 
them  has  as  yet  found  little  favor  with  English  theologians  ; 
yet  rather  perhaps  because  it  would  be  inconvenient  for 
certain  peculiar  forms  of  English  thought  than  because  it 
has  not  probability  on  its  side.  That  the  Synoptical  Gos- 
pels should  have  been  a  natural  growth  rather  than  the 
special  and  independent  work  of  three  separate  writers, 
would  be  unfavorable  to  a  divinity  which  has  built  itself  up 
upon  particular  texts,  and  has  been  more  concerned  with 
doctrinal  polemics  than  with  the  broader  basements  of  his- 
toric truth.  Yet  the  text  theory  suffers  equally  from  the 
mode  in  which  the  first  Fathers  treated  the  Gospels,  if  it 
were  these  Gospels  indeed  which  they  used.  They  at  least 
could  have  attributed  no  importance  to  words  and  phrases ; 

15 


226  Criticism  and  the  Gospel  History* 

while  again,  as  we  said  before,  a  narrative  dating  from  tho 
cradle  of  Christianity,  with  the  testimony  in  its  favor  of 
such  broad  and  deep  reception,  would,  however  wanting 
in  some  details,  be  an  evidence  of  the  truth  of  the  main 
facts  of  the  Gospel  history  very  much  stronger  than  that 
of  three  books  composed  we  know  not  when,  and  the  origin 
of  which  it  is  impossible  to  trace,  which  it  is  impossible  to 
regard  as  independent,  and  the  writers  of  which  in  any 
other  view  of  them  must  be  assumed  to  havo  borrowed 
from  each  other. 

But  the  object  of  this  article  is  not  to  press  either  this 
or  any  other  theory ;  it  is  but  to  ask  from  those  who  are 
able  to  give  it,  an  answer  to  the  most  serious  of  questions. 
The  truth  of  the  Gospel  history  is  now  more  widely  doubted 
in  Europe  than  at  any  time  since  the  conversion  of  Con- 
stantine.  Every  thinking  person  who  has  been  brought  up 
a  Christian  and  desires  to  remain  a  Christian,  yet  who 
knows  any  thing  of  what  is  passing  in  the  world,  is  looking 
to  be  told  on  what  evidence  the  New  Testament  claims  to 
be  received.  The  state  of  opinion  proves  of  itself  that  the 
arguments  hitherto  offered  produce  no  conviction.  Every 
other  miraculous  history  is  discredited  as  legend,  however 
exalted  the  authority  on  which  it  seems  to  be  rested.  We 
crave  to  have  good  reason  shown  us  for  maintaining  still 
the  one  great  exception.  Hard  worked  in  other  profes- 
sions, and  snatching  with  difficulty  sufficient  leisure  to  learn 
how  complicated  is  the  problem,  the  laity  can  but  turn  to 
those  for  assistance  who  are  set  apart  and  maintained  as 
their  theological  trustees.  "We  can  but  hope  and  pray  that 
some  one  may  be  found  to  give  us  an  edition  of  the  Gos- 
pels in  which  the  difficulties  will  neither  be  slurred  over 
with  convenient  neglect  or  noticed  with  affected  indiffer- 
ence. It  may  or  may  not  be  a  road  to  a  bishopric  ;  it  may 
or  may  not  win  the  favor  of  the  religious  world ;  but  it  will 
earn  at  least  the  respectful  gratitude  of  those  who  cannot 
trifle  with  holy  things,  and  who  believe  that  true  religion  is 
the  service  of  truth. 


Criticism  and  the  Gospel  History.           227 

The  last  words  were  scarcely  written  when  an  advertise- 
ment appeared,  the  importance  of  which  can  scarcely  be 
over-estimated.  A  commentary  is  announced  on  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  to  be  composed  with  a  view  to  what 
are  called  the  "  misrepresentations  "  of  modern  criticism. 
It  is  to  be  brought  out  under  the  direction  of  the  heads  of 
the  Church,  and  is  the  nearest  approach  to  an  official  act 
in  these  great  matters  which  they  have  ventured  for  two 
hundred  years.  It  is  not  for  us  to  anticipate  the  result. 
The  word  "  misrepresentations  "  is  unfortunate ;  we  should 
have  augured  better  for  the  work  if  instead  of  it  had  been 
written  "  the  sincere  perplexities  of  honest  minds,"  But 
the  execution  may  be  better  than  the  promise.  If  these 
perplexities  are  encountered  honorably  and  successfully, 
the  Church  may  recover  its  supremacy  over  the  intellect 
of  the  country ;  if  otherwise,  the  archbishop  who  has  taken 
the  command  will  have  steered  the  vessel  direct  upon  the 
rocks. 


THE   BOOK   OF  JOB.1 


IT  will  be  matter  some  day  of  curious  inquiry  to  ascer- 
tain why,  notwithstanding  the  high  reverence  with  which 
the  English  people  regard  the  Bible,  they  have  done  so 
little  in  comparison  with  their  continental  contemporaries 
towards  arriving  at  a  proper  understanding  of  it.  The 
books  named  below  2  form  but  a  section  of  a  long  list  which 
has  appeared  during  the  last  few  years  in  Germany  on  the 
Book  of  Job  alone ;  and  this  book  has  not  received  any 
larger  share  of  attention  than  the  others,  either  of  the  Old 
or  the  New  Testament.  Whatever  be  the  nature  or  the 
origin  of  these  books  (and  on  this  point  there  is  much 
difference  of  opinion  among  the  Germans  as  among  our- 
selves), they  are  all  agreed,  orthodox  and  unorthodox,  that 
at  least  we  should  endeavor  to  understand  them  ;  and  that 
no  efforts  can  be  too  great,  either  of  research  or  criticism, 
to  discover  their  history,  or  elucidate  their  meaning. 

We  shall  assent,  doubtless,  eagerly,  perhaps  noisily  and 
indignantly,  to  so  obvious  a  truism;  but  our  own  efforts 
in  the  same  direction  will  not  bear  us  out.  Able  men  in 
England  employ  themselves  in  matters  of  a  more  practical 

1  Westminster  Jtevieic,  1853. 

2  1.  Die  poelischen  Biicher  des  Alien  Bundes.     Erkliirt  von   Heinrieh 
Ewald.    Gottingen :  bei  Vanderhoeck  und  Kuprecht.     1836. 

2.  Kurzgtfasstes  exegelisches  Handbuch  zum  Alien   Testament.     Zweite 
Licferung.  Hivb.  Von  Ludwig  Hirzel.    Zweite  Auflage,  durchgesehen  von 
Dr.  Justus  Olshausen.    Leipzig.     1852. 

3.  Quastionum  in  Jobeidos  locos  vexatcs  Specimen.    Von  D.  Hermanuus 
HnpfeM.     Halis  Saxonum.     1853. 


The  Book  of  Job.  229 

character ;  and  while  we  refuse  to  avail  ourselves  of  what 
has  been  done  elsewhere,  no  book,  or  books,  which  we  pro- 
duce on  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  acquire  more  than 
a  partial  or  an  ephemeral  reputation.  The  most  important 
contribution  to  our  knowledge  on  this  subject  which  has 
been  made  in  these  recent  years  is  the  translation  of  the 
"  Library  of  the  Fathers,"  by  which  it  is  about  as  rational 
to  suppose  that  the  analytical  criticism  of  modern  times  can 
be  superseded,  as  that  the  place  of  Herman  and  Dindorf 
could  be  supplied  by  an  edition  of  the  old  scholiasts. 

It  is,  indeed,  reasonable  that,  as  long  as  we  are  persuaded 
that  our  English  theory  of  the  Bible,  as  a  whole,  is  the 
right  one,  we  should  shrink  from  contact  with  investiga- 
tions which,  however  ingenious  in  themselves,  are  based  on 
what  we  know  to  be  a  false  foundation.  But  there  are 
some  learned  Germans  whose  orthodoxy  would  pass  exam- 
ination at  Exeter  Hall ;  and  there  are  many  subjects  — 
such,  for  instance,  as  the  present  —  on  which  all  their  able 
men  are  agreed  in  conclusions  that  cannot  rationally  give 
offense  to  any  one.  With  the  Book  of  Job,  analytical  crit- 
icism has  only  served  to  clear  up  the  uncertainties  which 
have  hitherto  always  hung  about  it.  It  is  now  considered 
to  be,  beyond  all  doubt,  a  genuine  Hebrew  original,  com- 
pleted by  its  writer  almost  in  the  form  in  which  it  now 
remains  to  us.  The  questions  on  the  authenticity  of  the 
Prologue  and  Epilogue,  which  once  were  thought  impor- 
tant, have  given  way  before  a  more  sound  conception  of  the 
dramatic  unity  of  the  entire  poem  ;  and  the  volumes  before 
us  contain  merely  an  inquiry  into  its  meaning,  bringing,  at 
the  same  time,  all  the  resources  of  modern  scholarship  and 
historical  and  mythological  research  to  bear  upon  the  ob- 
scurity of  separate  passages.  It  is  the  most  difficult  of  all 
the  Hebrew  compositions,  —  many  words  occurring  in  it, 
and  many  thoughts,  not  to  be  found  elsewhere  in  the  Bible. 
How  difficult  our  translators  found  it  may  be  seen  by  the 
number  of  words  which  they  were  obliged  to  insert  in 


230  The  Book  of  Job. 

italics,  and  the  doubtful  renderings  which  they  have  sug° 
gested  in  the  margin.  One  instance  of  this,  in  passing,  we 
will  notice  in  this  place ;  it  will  be  familiar  to  every  one  as 
the  passage  quoted  at  the  opening  of  the  English  Burial 
Service,  and  adduced  as  one  of  the  doctrinal  proofs  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  body :  "  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liv- 
eth,  and  that  He  shall  stand  at  the  latter  day  upon  the 
earth ;  and  though,  after  my  skin  worms  destroy  this  body, 
yet  in  my  flesh  I  shall  see  God."  So  this  passage  stands 
in  the  ordinary  version.  But  the  words  in  italics  have 
nothing  answering  to  them  in  the  original,  —  they  were  all 
added  by  the  translators l  to  fill  out  their  interpretation  ; 
and  for  in  my  flesh,  they  tell  us  themselves  in  the  margin 
that  we  may  read  (and,  in  fact,  we  ought  to  read,  and  must 
read)  "  out  of"  or  "  without "  my  flesh.  It  is  but  to  write 
out  the  verses,  omitting  the  conjectural  additions,  and  mak- 
ing that  one  small  but  vital  correction,  to  see  how  frail  a 
support  is  there  for  so  large  a  conclusion :  "  I  know  that 
my  Redeemer  liveth,  and  shall  stand  at  the  latter 
upon  the  earth ;  and  after  my  skin  destroy  this  j 
yet  without  my  flesh  I  shall  see  God."  If  there  is  any 
doctrine  of  a  resurrection  here,  it  is  a  resurrection  precisely 
not  of  the  body,  but  of  the  spirit.  And  now  let  us  only 
add,  that  the  word  translated  Redeemer  is  the  technical 
expression  for  the  "  avenger  of  blood  ;  "  and  that  the  sec- 
ond paragraph  ought  to  be  rendered,  "  and  one  to  come 
after  me  (my  next  of  kin,  to  whom  the  avenging  my  inju- 
ries belongs)  shall  stand  upon  my  dust,"  and  we  shall  see 
how  much  was  to  be  done  towards  the  mere  exegesis  of  the 
text.  This  is  an  extreme  instance,  and  no  one  will  ques- 
tion the  general  beauty  and  majesty  of  our  translation  ;  but 
there  are  many  mythical  and  physical  allusions  scattered 
over  the  poem,  which,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  there  were 
positively  no  means  of  understanding ;  and  perhaps,  too, 
there  were  mental  tendencies  in  the  translators  themselves 
1  Or  rather  by  St.  Jerome,  whom  our  translators  have  followed. 


The  Book  of  Job.  231 

which  prevented  them  from  adequately  apprehending  even 
the  drift  and  spirit  of  the  composition.  The  form  of  the 
story  was  too  stringent  to  allow  such  tendencies  any  lati- 
tude ;  but  they  appear,  from  time  to  time,  sufficiently  to 
produce  serious  confusion.  With  these  recent  assistances, 
therefore,  we  propose  to  say  something  of  the  nature  of  this 
extraordinary  book,  —  a  book  of  which  it  is  to  say  little  to 
call  it  unequaled  of  its  kind,  and  which  Will  one  day,  per- 
haps, when  it  is  allowed  to  stand  on  its  own  merits,  be  seen 
towering  up  alone,  far  away  above  all  the  poetry  of  the 
world.  How  it  found  its  way  into  the  canon,  smiting  as  it 
does  through  and  through  the  most  deeply  seated  Jewish 
prejudices,  is  the  chief  difficulty  about  it  now ;  to  be  ex- 
plained only  by  a  traditional  acceptance  among  the  sacred 
books,  dating  back  from  the  old  times  of  the  national  great- 
ness, when  the  minds  of  the  people  were  hewn  in  a  larger 
type  than  was  to  be  found  among  the  Pharisees  of  the 
great  synagogue.  But  its  authorship,  its  date,  and  its  his- 
tory, are  alike  a  mystery  to  us  ;  it  existed  at  the  time  whc:i 
the  canon  was  composed ;  and  this  is  all  that  we  know 
beyond  what  we  can  gather  out  of  the  language  and  con- 
tents of  the  poem  itself. 

Before  going  furthe^  however,  we  must  make  room  for  a 
few  remarks  of  a  very  general  kind.  Let  it  have  been 
written  when  it  would,  it  marks  a  period  in  which  the  re- 
ligious convictions  of  thinking  men  were  passing  through  a 
vast  crisis ;  and  we  shall  not  understand  it  without  having 
before  us  clearly  something  of  the  conditions  which  periods 
of  such  a  kind  always  and  necessarily  exhibit. 

The  history  of  religious  speculation  appears  in  extreme 
outline  to  have  been  of  the  following  character.  We  may 
conceive  mankind  to  have  been  originally  launched  into 
the  universe  with  no  knowledge  either  of  themselves  or  of 
the  scene  in  which  they  were  placed ;  with  no  actual  knowl- 
edge, but  distinguished  from  the  rest  of  the  creation  by  a 
faculty  of  gaining  knowledge »  and  first  tlticonsciously,  and 


232  The  Book  of  Job. 

afterwards  consciously  and  laboriously,  to  have  commenced 
that  long  series  of  experience  and  observation  which  has 
accumulated  in  thousands  of  years  to  what  we  now  see 
around  us.  Limited  on  all  sides  by  conditions  which  they 
must  have  felt  to  be  none  of  their  own  imposing,  and  find- 
ing everywhere  forces  working,  over  which  they  had  no 
control,  the  fear  which  they  would  naturally  entertain  of 
these  invisible  and  mighty  agents  assumed,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  an  idea  which  we  may  perhaps  call  inborn  and 
inherent  in  human  nature,  a  more  generous  character  of 
reverence  and  awe.  The  laws  of  the  outer  world,  as  they 
discovered  them,  they  regarded  as  the  decrees,  or  as  the 
immediate  energies  of  personal  beings  ;  and  as  knowledge 
grew  up  among  them,  they  looked  upon  it,  not  as  knowl- 
edge of  Nature,  but  of  God,  or  the  gods.  All  early  pagan- 
ism appears,  on  careful  examination,  to  have  arisen  out  of 
a  consecration  of  the  first  rudiments  of  physical  or  specu- 
lative science.  The  twelve  labors  of  Hercules  are  the  la- 
bors of  the  sun,  of  which  Hercules  is  an  old  name,  through 
the  twelve  signs.  Chronos,  or  time,  being  measured  by  the 
apparent  motion  of  the  heavens,  is  figured  as  their  child ; 
Time,  the  universal  parent,  devours  its  own  offspring,  yet  is 
again  itself,  in  the  high  faith  of  a  human  soul  conscious  of 
its  power  and  its  endurance,  supposed  to  be  baffled  and  de- 
throned by  Zeus,  or  life  ;  and  so  on  through  all  the  elabo- 
rate theogonies  of  Greece  and  Egypt.  They  are  no  more 
than  real  insight  into  real  phenomena,  allegorized  as  time 
went  on,  elaborated  by  fancy,  or  idealized  by  imagination, 
but  never  losing  their  original  character. 

Thus  paganism,  in  its  very  nature,  was  expansive,  self- 
developing,  and,  as  Mr.  Hume  observed,  tolerant ;  a  new 
god  was  welcomed  to  the  Pantheon  as  a  new  scientific  dis- 
covery is  welcomed  by  the  Royal  Society  ;  and  the  various 
nations  found  no  difficulty  in  interchanging  their  divinities, 
—  a  new  god  either  representing  a  new  power  not  hitherto 
discovered,  or  one  with  which  they  were  already  familiar 


Ttie  Book  of  Job.  238 

under  a  new  name.  "With  such  a  power  of  adaptation  and 
enlargement,  if  there  had  been  nothing  more  in  it  than  this, 
such  a  system  might  have  gone  on  accommodating  itself  to 
the  change  of  times,  and  keeping  pace  with  the  growth  of 
human  character.  Already  in  its  later  forms,  as  the  unity 
of  Nature  was  more  clearly  observed,  and  the  identity  of 
Nature  throughout  the  known  world,  the  separate  powers 
were  subordinating  themselves  to  a  single  supreme  king ; 
and,  as  the  poets  had  originally  personified  the  elemental 
forces,  the  thinkers  were  reversing  the  earlier  process,  and 
discovering  the  law  under  the  person.  Happily  or  unhap- 
pily, however,  what  they  could  do  for  themselves  they  could 
not  do  for  the  multitude.  Phcebus  and  Aphrodite  had  been 
made  too  human  to  be  allegorized.  Humanized,  and  yet, 
we  may  say,  only  half-humanized,  retaining  their  purely 
physical  nature,  and  without  any  proper  moral  attribute  at 
all,  these  gods  and  goddesses  remained,  to  the  many,  exam- 
ples of  sensuality  made  beautiful ;  and,  as  soon  as  right 
and  wrong  came  to  have  a  meaning,  it  was  impossible  to 
worship  any  more  these  idealized  despisers  of  it.  The  hu- 
man caprices  and  passions  which  served  at  first  to  deepen 
the  illusion,  justly  revenged  themselves ;  paganism  became 
a  lie,  and  perished. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  Jews  (and  perhaps  some  other  na- 
tions, but  the  Jews  chiefly  and  principally)  had  been  mov- 
ing forward  along  a  road  wholly  different.  Breaking  early 
away  from  the  gods  of  Nature,  they  advanced  along  the  line 
of  their  moral  consciousness ;  and  leaving  the  nations  to 
study  physics,  philosophy,  and  art,  they  confined  themselves 
to  man  and  to  human  life.  Their  theology  grew  up  round 
the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  and  God,  with  them,  was 
the  supreme  Lord  of  the  world,  who  stood  towards  man  in 
the  relation  of  a  ruler  and  a  judge.  Holding  such  a  faith, 
to  them  the  toleration  of  paganism  was  an  impossibility ; 
the  laws  of  Nature  might  be  many,  but  the  law  of  conduct 
was  one  ;  there  was  one  law  and  one  king  ;  and  the  condi- 


234  The  Book  of  Job. 

tions  under  which  He  governed  the  world,  as  embodied  in 
the  Decalogue  or  other  similar  code,  were  looked  upon  as 
iron  and  inflexible  certainties,  unalterable  revelations  of  the 
will  of  an  unalterable  Being.  So  far  there  was  little  in 
common  between  this  process  and  the  other ;  but  it  was 
identical  with  it  in  this  one  important  feature,  that  moral 
knowledge,  like  physical,  admitted  of  degrees ;  and  the 
successive  steps  of  it  were  only  purchasable  by  experience. 
The  dispensation  of  the  law,  in  the  language  of  modern 
theology,  was  not  the  dispensation  of  grace,  and  the  nature 
of  good  and  evil  disclosed  itself  slowly  as  men  were  able 
to  comprehend  it.  Thus,  no  system  of  law  or  articles  of 
belief  were  or  could  be  complete  and  exhaustive  for  all 
time.  Experience  accumulates;  new  facts  are  observed, 
new  forces  display  themselves,  and  all  such  formulas  must 
necessarily  be  from  period  to  period  broken  up  and  moulded 
afresh.  And  yet  the  steps  already  gained  are  a  treasure  so 
sacred,  so  liable  are  they  at  all  times  to  be  attacked  by 
those  lower  and  baser  elements  in  our  nature  which  it  is 
their  business  to  hold  in  check,  that  the  better  part  of  man- 
kind have  at  all  times  practically  regarded  their  creed  as  a 
sacred  total  to  which  nothing  may  be  added,  and  from 
which  nothing  may  be  taken  away ;  the  suggestion  of  a 
new  idea  is  resented  as  an  encroachment,  punished  as  an 
insidious  piece  of  treason,  and  resisted  by  the  combined 
forces  of  all  common  practical  understandings,  which  know 
too  well  the  value  of  what  they  have,  to  risk  the  venture 
upon  untried  change.  Periods  of  religious  transition,  there- 
fore, when  the  advance  has  been  a  real  one,  always  have  been 
violent,  and  probably  will  always  continue  to  be  so.  They 
to  whom  the  precious  gift  of  fresh  light  has  been  given  are 
called  upon  to  exhibit  their  credentials  as  teachers  in  suf- 
fering for  it.  They,  and  those  who  oppose  then),  have  alike 
a  sacred  cause ;  and  the  fearful  spectacle  arises  of  earnest, 
vehement  men  contending  against  each  other  as  for  their 
own  souls,  in  fiery  struggle.  Persecutions  come,  and  mar- 


TJie  Book  of  Job.  235 

tyrdoms,  and  religious  wars ;  and,  at  last,  the  old  faith,  like 
the  phoenix,  expires  upon  its  altar,  and  the  new  rises  out 
of  the  ashes. 

Such,  in  briefest  outline,  has  been  the  history  of  relig- 
ions, natural  and  moral ;  the  first,  indeed,  being  in  no 
proper  sense  a  religion  at  all,  as  we  understand  religion  ; 
and  only  assuming  the  character  of  it  in  the  minds  of  great 
men  whose  moral  sense  had  raised  them,  beyond  their  time 
and  country,  and  who,  feeling  the  necessity  of  a  real  creed, 
with  an  effort  and  with  indifferent  success,  endeavored  to 
express,  under  the  systems  which  they  found,  emotions 
which  had  no  proper  place  in  them. 

Of  the  transition  periods  which  we  have  described  as 
taking  place  under  the  religion  which  we  call  moral,  the 
first  known  to  us  is  marked  at  its  opening  by  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Book  of  Job,  the  first  fierce  collision  of  the 
new  fact  with  the  formula  which  will  not  stretch  to  cover  it. 

The  earliest  phenomenon  likely  to  be  observed  connected 
with  the  moral  government  of  the  world  is  the  general  one, 
that  on  the  whole,  as  things  are  constituted,  good  men 
prosper  and  are  happy,  bad  men  fail  and  are  miserable. 
The  cause  of  such  a  condition  is  no , mystery,  and  lies  very 
near  the  surface.  As  soon  as  men  combine  in  society, 
they  are  forced  to  obey  certain  laws  under  which  alone  so- 
ciety is  possible,  and  these  laws,  even  in  their  rudest  form, 
approach  the  laws  of  conscience.  To  a  certain  extent, 
every  one  is  obliged  to  sacrifice  his  private  inclinations ; 
and  those  who  refuse  to  do  so  are  punished,  or  are  crushed. 
If  society  were  perfect,  the  imperfect  tendency  would  carry 
itself  out  till  the  two  sets  of  laws  were  identical ;  but  per- 
fection so  far  has  been  only  in  Utopia,  and,  as  far  as  we  can 
judge  by  experience  hitherto,  they  have  approximated  most 
nearly  in  the  simplest  and  most  rudimentary  forms  of  life. 
Under  the  systems  which  we  call  patriarchal,  the  modern 
distinction  between  sins  and  crimes  had  no  existence.  All 
gross  sins  were  offenses  against  society,  as  it  then  was  con- 


236  The  Book  of  Job. 

stituted,  and,  wherever  it  was  possible,  were  punished  as 
being  so ;  chicanery  and  those  subtle  advantages  which  the 
acute  and  unscrupulous  can  take  over  the  simple,  without 
open  breach  of  enacted  statutes,  became  only  possible  un- 
der the  complications  of  more  artificial  polities ;  and  the 
oppression  or  injury  of  man  by  man  was  open,  violent,  ob- 
vions,  and  therefore  easily  understood.  Doubtless,  there- 
fore, in  such  a  state  of  things  it  would,  on  the  whole,  be 
true  to  experience  that,  judging  merely  by  outward  pros- 
perity or  the  reverse,  good  and  bad  men  would  be  rewarded 
and  punished  as  such  in  this  actual  world ;  so  far,  that  Ij, 
,as  the  administration  of  such  rewards  and  punishments  was 
left  in  the  power  of  mankind.  But  theology  could  not  con- 
tent itself  with  general  tendencies.  Theological  proposi- 
tions then,  us  much  as  now,  were  held  to  be  absolute, 
universal,  admitting  of  no  exceptions,  and  explaining  every 
phenomenon.  Superficial  generalizations  were  construed 
into  immutable  decrees ;  the  God  of  this  world  was  just 
and  righteous,  and  temporal  prosperity  or  wretchedness 
were  dealt  out  by  him  immediately  by  his  own  will  to  his 
subjects,  according  to  their  behavior.  Thus  the  same  dis- 
position towards  completeness  which  was  the  ruin  of  pagan- 
ism, here,  too,  was  found  generating  the  same  evils;  the 
half  truth  rounding  itself  out  with  falsehoods.  Not  only 
the  consequences  of  ill  actions  which  followed  through 
themselves,  but  the  accidents,  as  we  call  them,  of  Nature 
—  earthquakes,  storms,  and  pestilences  —  were  the  min- 
isters of  God's  justice,  and  struck  sinners  only  with  dis- 
criminating accuracy.  That  the  sun  should  shine  alike  on 
the  evil  and  the  good  was  a  creed  too  high  for  the  early 
divines,  or  that  the  victims  of  a  fallen  tower  were  no 
greater  offenders  than  their  neighbors.  The  conceptions 
of  such  men  could  not  pass  beyond  the  outward  temporal 
consequence ;  and  if  God's  hand  was  not  there  it  was  no- 
where. We  might  have  expected  that  such  a  theory  of 
things  could  not  long  resist  the  accumulated  contradictions 


The  Book  of  Job.  237 

of  experience  ;  but  the  same  experience  shows  also  what  a 
marvelous  power  is  in  us  of  thrusting  aside  phenomena 
which  interfere  with  our  cherished  convictions  ;  and  when 
such  convictions  are  consecrated  into  a  creed  which  it  is  a 
sacred  duty  to  believe,  experience  is  but  like  water  drop- 
ping upon  a  rock,  which  wears  it  away,  indeed,  at  last,  but 
'only  in  thousands  of  years.  This  theory  was  and  is  the 
central  idea  of  the  Jewish  polity,  the  obstinate  toughness 
of  which  has  been  the  perplexity  of  Gentiles  and  Chris 
tians  from  the  first  dawn  of  its  existence  ;  it  lingers  among 
ourselves  in  our  Liturgy  and  in  the  popular  belief;  and  in 
spite  of  the  emphatic  censure  of  Him  after  whose  name  we 
call  ourselves,  is  still  the  instant  interpreter  for  us  of  any 
unusual  calamity,  —  a  potato  blight,  a  famine,  or  an  epi- 
demic :  such  vitality  is  there  in  a  moral  faith,  though  now, 
at  any  rate,  contradicted  by  the  experience  of  all  mankind, 
and  at  issue  even  with  Christianity  itself. 

At  what  period  in  the  world's  history  misgivings  about 
it  began  to  show  themselves  it  is  now  impossible  to  say ;  it 
was  at  the  close,  probably,  of  the  patriarchal  period,  when 
men  who  really  thought  must  have  found  the  ground  pal- 
pably shaking  under  them.  Indications  of  such  misgivings 
are  to  be  found  in  the  Psalms,  those  especially  passing  un- 
der the  name  of  Asaph ;  and  all  through  Ecclesiastes  there 
breathes  a  spirit  of  deepest  and  saddest  skepticism.  But 
Asaph  thrusts  his  doubts  aside,  and  forces  himself  back 
into  his  old  position  ;  and  the  skepticism  of  Ecclesiastes  is 
confessedly  that  of  a  man  who  had  gone  wandering  after 
enjoyment ;  searching  after  pleasures,  —  pleasures  of  sense 
and  pleasures  of  intellect,  —  and  who,  at  last,  bears  re- 
luctant testimony  that,  by  such  methods,  no  pleasures  can 
be  found  which  will  endure  ;  that  he  had  squandered  the 
power  which  might  have  been  used  for  better  things,  and 
had  only  strength  remaining  to  tell  his  own  sad  tale  as  a 
warning  to  mankind.  There  is  nothing  in  Ecclesiastes  like 
the  misgivings  of  a  noble  nature.  The  writer's  own  per- 


238  The  Book  of  Job. 

sonal  happiness  had  been  all  for  which  he  had  cared ;  he 
had  failed,  as  all  men  gifted  as  he  was  gifted  are  sure  to 
fail,  and  the  lights  of  heaven  were  extinguished  by  the  dis- 
appointment with  which  his  own  spirit  had  been  clouded. 

Utterly  different  from  these,  both  in  character  and  in  the 
lesson  which  it  teaches,  is  the  Book  of  Job.  Of  unknown 
date,  as  we  said,  and  unknown  authorship,  the  language 
impregnated  with  strange  idioms  and  strange  allusions, 
un-Jewish  in  form,  and  in  fiercest  hostility  with  Judaism,  it 
hovers  like  a  meteor  over  the  old  Hebrew  literature,  in  it, 
but  not  of  it,  compelling  the  acknowledgment  of  itself  by 
its  own  internal  majesty,  yet  exerting  no  influence  over  the 
minds  of  the  people,  never  alluded  to,  and  scarcely  ever 
quoted,  till  at  last  the  light  which  it  had  heralded  rose  up 
full  over  the  world  in  Christianity. 

The  conjectures  which  have  been  formed  upon  the  date 
of  this  book  are  so  various,  that  they  show  of  themselves 
on  how  slight  a  foundation  the  best  of  them  must  rest. 
The  language  is  no  guide,  for  although  unquestionably  of 
Hebrew  origin,  the  poem  bears  no  analogy  to  any  of  the 
other  books  in  the  Bible  ;  while  of  its  external  history 
nothing  is  known  at  all,  except  that  it  was  received  into  the 
canon  at  the  time  of  the  great  synagogue.  Ewald  decides, 
with  some  confidence,  that  it  belongs  to  the  great  prophetic 
period,  and  that  the  writer  was  a  contemporary  of  Jere- 
miah. Ewald  is  a  high  authority  in  these  matters,  and  this 
opinion  is  the  one  which  we  believe  is  now  commonly  re- 
ceived among  biblical  scholars.  In  the  absence  of  proof, 
however  (and  the  reasons  which  he  brings  forward  are 
really  no  more  than  conjectures),  these  opposite  considera- 
tions may  be  of  moment.  It  is  only  natural  that  at  first 
thought  we  should  ascribe  the  grandest  poem  in  a  literature 
to  the  time  at  which  the  poetry  of  the  nation  to  which  it 
belongs  was  generally  at  its  best ;  but,  on  reflection,  the 
time  when  the  poetry  of  prophecy  is  the  richest,  is  not 
likely  to  be  -favorable  to  compositions  of  another  kind. 


The  Book  of  Job.  239 

The  prophets  wrote  in  an  era  of  decrepitude,  dissolution, 
sin,  and  shame,  when  the  glory  of  Israel  was  falling  round 
them  into  ruin,  and  their  mission,  glowing  as  they  were 
with  the  ancient  spirit,  was  to  rebuke,  to  warn,  to  threaten, 
and  to  promise.  Finding  themselves  too  late  to  save,  and 
only,  like  Cassandra,  despised  and  disregarded,  their  voices 
rise  up  singing  the  swan  song  of  a  dying  people,  now  fall- 
ing away  in  the  wild  wailing  of  despondency  over  the 
shameful  and  desperate  present,  now  swelling  in  triumph- 
ant hope  that  God  will  not  leave  them  forever,  and  in  his 
own  time  will  take  his  chosen  to  Himself  again.  But  such 
a  period  is  an  ill  occasion  for  searching  into  the  broad 
problems  of  human  destiny ;  the  present  is  all-important 
and  all-absorbing ;  and  such  a  book  as  that  of  Job  could 
have  arisen  only  out  of  an  isolation  of  mind,  and  life,  and 
interest,  which  we  cannot  conceive  of  as  possible  under 
such  conditions. 

The  more  it  is  studied,  the  more  the  conclusion  forces 
itself  upon  us  that,  let  the  writer  have  lived  when  he  would, 
in  his  struggle  with  the  central  falsehood  of  his  own  peo- 
ple's creed,  he  must  have  divorced  himself  from  them  out- 
wardly as  well  as  inwardly ;  that  he  travelled  away  into 
the  world,  and  lived  long,  perhaps  all  his  matured  life,  in 
exile.  Every  thing  about  the  book  speaks  of  a  person  who 
had  broken  free  from  the  narrow  littleness  of  "  the  pecul- 
iar people."  The  language,  as  we  said,  is  full  of  strange 
words.  The  hero  of  the  poem  is  of  a  strange  land  and  par- 
entage —  a  Gentile  certainly,  not  a  Jew.  The  life,  the 
manners,  the  customs,  are  of  all  varieties  and  places : 
Egypt,  with  its  river  and  its  pyramids,  is  there ;  the  de- 
scription oi  mining  points  to  Phoenicia ;  the  settled  life  in 
cities,  the  nomad  Arabs,  the  wandering  caravans,  the  heat 
of  the  tropics,  and  the  ice  of  the  north,  all  are  foreign  to 
Canaan,  speaking  of  foreign  things  and  foreign  people. 
No  mention,  or  hint  of  mention,  is  there  throughout  the 
poem  of  Jewish  traditions  or  Jewish  certainties.  We  look 


240  The  Book  of  Job, 

to  find  the  three  friends  vindicate  themselves,  as  they  so 
well  might  have  done,  by  appeals  to  the  fertile  annals  of 
Israel,  to  the  Flood,  to  the  cities  of  the  plain,  to  the  plagues 
of  Egypt,  or  the  thunders  of  Sinai.  But  of  all  this  there 
is  not  a  word  ;  they  are  passed  by  as  if  they  had  no  exist- 
ence ;  and  instead  of  them,  when  witnesses  are  required 
for  the  power  of  God,  we  have  strange  un-Hebrew  stories 
of  the  eastern  astronomic  mythology,  the  old  wars  of  the 
giants,  the  imprisoned  Orion,  the  wounded  dragon,  "  the 
sweet  influences  of  the  seven  stars,"  and  the  glittering  frag- 
ments of  the  sea-snake  Rahab  *  trailing  across  the  northern 
sky.  Again,  God  is  not  the  God  of  Israel,  but  the  father 
of  mankind ;  we  hear  nothing  of  a  chosen  people,  nothing 
of  a  special  revelation,  nothing  of  peculiar  privileges ;  and 
in  the  court  of  heaven  there  is  a  Satan,  not  the  prince  of 
this  world  and  the  enemy  of  God,  but  the  angel  of  judg- 
ment, the  accusing  spirit  whose  mission  was  to  walk  to  and 
fro  over  the  earth,  and  carry  up  to  heaven  an  account  of 
the  sins  of  mankind.  We  cannot  believe  that  thoughts  of 
this  kind  arose  out  of  Jerusalem  in  the  days  of  Josiah. 
In  this  book,  if  anywhere,  we  have  the  record  of  some 
avi]p  TToAvr/JOTro;  who,  like  the  old  hero  of  Ithaca, 

iro\\<iiv  b.v8p<j)ir(av  VSev  atrrea  ical  voov  fyfd<, 
iroAAa  5"  oy'  Iv  i;6vTo>  -xdOev  &\ysa  fnv  Kara  Qvp&v, 
apvvfj.ei>os  ^vxjhv • 

but  the  scenes,  the  names,  and  the  incidents,  are  all  con- 
trived as  if  to  baffle  curiosity  —  as  if,  in  the  very  form  of 
the  poem,  to  teach  us  that  it  is  no  story  of  a  single  thing 
which  happened  once,  but  that  it  belongs  to  humanity  itself, 
and  is  the  drama  of  the  trial  of  man,  with  Almighty  God 
and  the  angels  as  the  spectators  of  it. 

No  reader  can  have  failed  to  have  been  struck  with  the 

simplicity  of  the  opening.     Still,  calm,  and  most  majestic, 

it  tells  us  every  thing  which  is  necessary  to  be  known  in 

the  fewest  possible  words.     The  history  of  Job  was  proba- 

1  See  Ewald  on  Job  ix.  13,  and  xxvi.  14. 


Tlie  Boole  of  Job.  241 

bly  a  tradition  in  the  East ;  his  name,  like  that  of  Priam  in 
Greece,  the  symbol  of  fallen  greatness,  and  his  misfor- 
tunes the  problem  of  philosophers.  In  keeping  with  the 
current  belief,  he  is  described  as  a  model  of  excellence,  the 
most  perfect  and  upright  man  upon  the  earth,  "  and  the 
same  was  the  greatest  man  in  all  the  east."  So  far,  great- 
ness and  goodness  had  gone  hand  in  hand  together,  as  the 
popular  theory  required.  The  details  of  his  character  are 
brought  out  in  the  progress  of  the  poem.  He  was  "  the 
father  of  the  oppressed,  and  of  those  who  had  none  to 
help  them."  When  he  sat  as  a  judge  in  the  market-places, 
"  righteousness  clothed  him  "  there,  and  "his  justice  was  a 
robe  and  a  diadem."  He  "  broke  the  jaws  of  the  wicked, 
and  plucked  the  spoil  out  of  his  teeth ; "  and,  humble  in 
the  midst  of  his  power,  he' "did  not  despise  the  cause  of 
his  man-servant,  or  his  maid-servant,  when  they  contended 
with  him,"  knowing  (and  amidst  those  old  people  where 
the  multitude  of  mankind  were  regarded  as  the  born  slaves 
of  the  powerful,  to  be  carved  into  eunuchs  or  polluted  into 
concubines  at  their  master's  pleasure,  it  was  no  easy  mat- 
ter to  know  it)  —  knowing  that  "  He  who  had  made  him 
had  made  them,"  and  one  "  had  fashioned  them  both  in  the 
womb."  Above  all,  he  was  the  friend  of  the  poor ;  "  the 
blessing  of  him  that  was  ready  to  perish  came  upon  him," 
and  he  "  made  the  widow's  heart  to  sing  for  joy." 

Setting  these  characteristics  of  his  daily  life  by  the  side 
of  his  unaffected  piety,  as  it  is  described  in  the  first  chap- 
ter, we  have  a  picture  of  the  best  man  who  could  then  be 
conceived ;  not  a  hard  ascetic,  living  in  haughty  or  cow- 
ardly isolation,  but  a  warm  figure  of  flesh  and  blood,  a  man 
full  of  all  human  loveliness,  and  to  whom,  that  no  room 
might  be  left  for  any  possible  Calvinistic  falsehood,  God 
Himself  bears  the  emphatic  testimony,  that  "  there  was 
none  like  him  upon  the  earth,  a  perfect  and  upright  man, 
who  feared  God  and  eschewed  evil."  If  such  a  person  as 
this,  therefore,  could  be  made  miserable,  necessarily  the 
10 


242  The  Book  of  Job. 

current  belief  of  the  Jews  was  false  to  the  root ;  and  tra- 
dition furnished  the  fact  that  he  had  been  visited  by  every 
worst  calamity.  How  was  it  then  to  be  accounted  for? 
Out  of  a  thousand  possible  explanations,  the  poet  intro- 
duces a  single  one.  He  admits  us  behind  the  veil  which 
covers  the  ways  of  Providence,  and  we  hear  the  accusing 
angel  charging  Job  with  an  interested  piety,  and  of  being 
obedient  because  it  was  his  policy.  "  Job  does  not  serve 
God  for  nought,"  he  says  ;  "  strip  him  of  his  splendor,  and 
see  if  he  will  care  for  God  then.  Humble  him  into  pov- 
erty and  wretchedness,  so  only  we  shall  know  what  is  in  his 
heart."  The  cause  thus  introduced  is  itself  a  rebuke  to 
the  belief  which,  with  its  "rewards  and  punishments," 
immediately  fostered  selfishness ;  and  the  poem  opens  with 
a  double  action,  on  one  side  to -try  the  question  whether  it 
is  possible  for  man  to  love  God  disinterestedly  —  the  issue 
of  which  trial  is  not  foreseen  or  even  foretold,  and  we 
watch  the  progress  of  it  with  an  anxious  and  fearful  inter- 
est ;  on  the  other  side,  to  bring  out,  in  contrast  to  the 
truth  which  we  already  know,  the  cruel  falsehood  of  the 
popular  faith — to  show  how,  instead  of  leading  men  to 
mercy  and  affection,  it  hardens  their  heart,  narrows  their 
sympathies,  and  enhances  the  trials  of  the  sufferer,  by  re- 
finements which  even  Satan  had  not  anticipated.  The 
combination  of  evils,  as  blow  falls  on  blow,  suddenly, 
swiftly,  and  terribly,  has  all  the  appearance  of  a  purposed 
visitation  (as  indeed  it  was)  ;  if  ever  outward  incidents 
might  with  justice  be  interpreted  as  the  immediate  action 
of  Providence,  those  which  fell  on  Job  might  be  so  inter- 
preted. The  world  turns  disdainfully  from  the  fallen  in 
the  world's  way  ;  but  far  worse  than  this,  his  chosen  friends, 
wise,  good,  pious  men,  as  wisdom  and  piety  were  then, 
without  one  glimpse  of  the  true  cause  of  his  sufferings,  see 
in  them  a  judgment  upon  his  secret  sins.  He  becomes  to 
them  an  illustration,  and  even  (such  are  the  paralogisms 
of  men  of  this  description)  a  proof  of  their  theory  that 


The  Book  of  Job.  243 

"  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked  is  but  for  a  while ; "  and 
instead  of  the  comfort  and  help  which  they  might  have 
brought  him,  and  which  in  the  end  they  were  made  ^o 
bring  him,  he  is  to  them  no  more  than  a  text  for  the  enun- 
ciation of  solemn  falsehood.  And  even  worse  again,  the 
sufferer  himself  had  been  educated  in  the  same  creed ;  he, 
too,  had  been  taught  to  see  the  hand  of  God  in  the  out- 
ward dispensation  ;  and  feeling  from  the  bottom  of  his 
heart,  that  he,  in  his  own  case,  was  a  sure  contradiction  of 
what  he  had  learnt  to  believe,  he  himself  finds  his  very 
faith  in  God  shaken  from  its  foundation.  The  worst  evils 
which  Satan  had  devised  were  distanced  far  by  those  which 
had  been  created  by  human  folly. 

The  creed  in  which  Job  had  believed  was  tried  and 
found  wanting,  and,  as  it  ever  will  be  when  the  facts  of  ex- 
perience come  in  contact  with  the  inadequate  formula,  the 
true  is  found  so  mingled  with  the  false,  that  they  can 
hardly  be  disentangled,  and  are  in  danger  of  being  swept 
away  together. 

A  studied  respect  is  shown,  however,  to  orthodoxy,  even 
while  it  is  arraigned  for  judgment.  It  may  be  doubtful 
whether  the  writer  purposely  intended  it.  He  probably 
cared  only  to  tell  the  real  truth  ;  to  say  for  the  old  theory 
the  best  which  could  be  said,  and  to  produce  as  its  defend- 
ers the  best  and  wisest  men  whom  in  his  experience  he 
had  known  to  believe  and  defend  it.  At  any  rate,  he  rep- 
resents the  three  friends,  not  as  a  weaker  person  would 
have  represented  them,  as  foolish,  obstinate  bigots,  but  as 
wise,  humane,  and  almost  great  men,  who,  at  the  outset,  at 
least,  are  animated  only  by  the  kindest  feelings,  and  speak 
what  they  have  to  say  with  the  most  earnest  conviction 
that  it  is  true.  Job  is  vehement,  desperate,  reckless.  His 
language  is  the  wild,  natural  outpouring  of  suffering.  The 
friends,  true  to  the  eternal  nature  of  man,  are  grave,  sol- 
emn, and  indignant,  preaching  their  half  truth,  and  mis 
taken  only  in  supposing  that  it  is  the  whole  ;  speaking,  zs 


244  The  Book  of  Job. 

all  such  persons  would  speak,  and  still  do  speak,  in  defend- 
ing what  they  consider  sacred  truth  against  the  assaults  of 
folly  and  skepticism.  How  beautiful  is  their  first  introduc- 
tion :  — 

"  Now  when  Job's  three  friends  heard  of  all  this  evil 
which  was  come  upon  him,  they  came  every  one  from  his  own 
place ;  Eliphaz  the  Temanite,  and  Bildad  the  Shuhite,  and 
Zophar  the  Naamathite  :  for  they  had  made  an  appointment 
together  to  come  to  mourn  with  him  and  to  comfort  him. 
And  when  they  lifted  up  their  eyes  afar  off,  and  knew  him 
not,  they  lifted  up  their  voice  and  wept,  and  they  rent 
every  one  his  mantle,  and  sprinkled  dust  upon  their  heads 
towards  heaven.  So  they  sat  down  with  him  upon  the 
ground  seven  days  and  seven  nights,  and  none  spake  a 
word  unto  him,  for  they  saw  that  his  grief  was  very  great." 

What  a  picture  is  there  !  What  majestic  tenderness  ! 
His  wife  had  scoffed  at  his  faith,  bidding  him  "  leave  God 
and  die."  "  His  acquaintance  had  turned  from  him."  He 
"  had  called  his  servant,  and  he  had  given  him  no  an- 
swer." Even  the  children,  in  their  unconscious  cruelty, 
had  gathered  round  and  mocked  him  as  he  lay  among 
the  ashes.  But  "  his  friends  sprinkle  dust  towards  heaven, 
and  sit  silently  by  him,  and  weep  for  him  seven  days  and 
seven  nights  upon  the  ground."  That  is,  they  were  true- 
hearted,  truly  loving,  devout,  religious  men;  and  yet 
they,  with  their  religion,  were  to  become  the  instruments 
of  the  most  poignant  sufferings,  the  sharpest  temptations, 
which  he  had  to  endure.  So  it  was,  and  is,  and  will  be  — 
of  such  materials  is  this  human  life  of  ours  composed. 

And  now,  remembering  the  double  action  of  the  dra- 
ma—  the  actual  trial  of  Job,  the  result  of  which  is  un- 
certain ;  and  the  delusion  of  these  men,  which  is,  at  the 
outset,  certain  —  let  us  go  rapidly  through  the  dialogue. 
Satan's  share  in  the  temptation  had  already  been  over- 
come. Lying  sick  in  the  loathsome  disease  which  had 
been  sent  upon  him,  his  wife,  in  Satan's  own  words,  had 


The  Book  of  Job.  245 

tempted  Job  to  say,  "  Farewell  to  God,"  —  think  no  more 
of  God  or  goodness,  since  this  was  all  which  came  of  it ; 
and  Job  had  told  her  that  she  spoke  as  one  of  the  fool- 
ish women.  He  "  had  received  good  at  the  hand  of  the 
Lord,  and  should  he  not  receive  evil  ? "  But  now,  when 
real  love  and  real  affection  appear,  his  heart  melts  iii 
him  ;  he  loses  his  forced  self-composure,  and  bursts  into  a 
passionate  regret  that  he  had  ever  been  born.  In  the 
agony  of  his  sufferings,  hope  of  better  things  had  died 
away.  He  does  not  complain  of  injustice ;  as  yet,  and 
before  his  friends  have  stung  and  wounded  him,  he  makes 
no  questioning  of  Providence,  —  but  why  was  life  given  to 
him  at  all,  if  only  for  this  ?  Sick  in  mind,  and  sick  in 
body,  but  one  wish  remains  to  him,  that  death  will  come 
quickly  and  end  all.  It  is  a  cry  from  the  very  depths 
of  a  single  and  simple  heart.  But  for  such  simplicity 
and  singleness  his  friends  could  not  give  him  credit; 
possessed  beforehand  with  their  idea,  they  see  in  his 
misery  only  a  fatal  witness  against  him  ;  such  calamities 
could  not  have  befallen  a  man,  the  justice  of  God  would 
not  have  permitted  it,  unless  they  had  been  deserved.  Job 
had  sinned  and  he  had  suffered,  and  this  wild  passion 
was  but  impenitence  and  rebellion. 

Being  as  certain  that  they  were  right  in  this  opinion 
as  they  were  that  God  Himself  existed,  that  they  should 
speak  what  they  felt  was  only  natural  and  necessary ;  and 
their  language  at  the  outset  is  all  which  would  be  dic- 
tated by  the  tenderest  sympathy.  Eliphaz  opens,  the 
oldest  and  most  important  of  the  three,  in  a  soft,  subdued, 
suggestive  strain,  contriving  in  every  way  to  spare  the  feel- 
ings of  the  sufferer,  to  the  extreme  to  which  his  love  will 
allow  him.  All  is  general,  impersonal,  indirect,  —  the  rule 
of  the  world,  the  order  of  Providence.  He  does  not  ac- 
cuse Job,  but  he  describes  his  calamities,  and  leaves  him 
to  gather  for  himself  the  occasion  which  had  produced 
them ;  and  then  passes  off,  as  if  further  to  soften  the 


246  The  Book  of  Job. 

blow,  to  the  mysterious  vision  in  which  the  infirmity  of 
mortal  nature  had  been  revealed  to  him,  the  universal 
weakness  which  involved  both  the  certainty  that  Job  had 
shared  in  it,  and  the  excuse  for  him,  if  he  would  confess 
and  humble  himself:  the  blessed  virtue  of  repentance  fol- 
lows, and  the  promise  that  all  shall  be  well. 

This  is  the  note  on  which  each  of  the  friends  strikes 
successively,  in  the  first  of  the  three  divisions  into  which 
the  dialogue  divides  itself,  but  each  with  increasing  per- 
emptoriness  and  confidence,  as  Job,  so  far  from  accepting 
their  interpretation  of  what  had  befallen  him,  hurls  it  from 
him  in  anger  and  disdain.  Let  us  observe  (and  the  Cal- 
vinists  should  consider  this),  he  will  hear  as  little  of  the 
charges  against  mankind  as  of  the  charges  against  him- 
self. He  will  not  listen  to  the  "  corruption  of  humanity," 
because  in  the  consciousness  of  his  own  innocency,  he 
knows  that  it  is  not  corrupt :  .he  knows  that  he  is  himself 
just  and  good,  and  we  know  it,  the  Divine  sentence  upon 
him  having  been  already  passed.  He  will  not  acknowl- 
edge his  sin,  for  he  knows  not  of  what  to  repent.  If  he 
could  have  reflected  calmly,  he  might  have  foreseen  what 
they  would  say.  He  knew  all  that  as  well  as  they  :  it  was 
the  old  story  which  he  had  learned,  and  could  repeat,  if 
necessary,  as  well  as  any  one  ;  and  if  it  had  been  no 
more  than  a  philosophical  discussion,  touching  himself  no 
more  nearly  than  it  touched  his  friends,  he  might  have 
allowed  for  the  tenacity  of  opinion  in  such  matters,  and 
listened  to  it  and  replied  to  it  with  equanimity.  But,  as 
the  proverb  says,  "It  is  ill  talking  between  a  full  man 
and  a  fasting : "  and  in  Job  such  equanimity  would  have 
been  but  Stoicism,  or  the  affectation  of  it,  and  unreal  as 
the  others'  theories.  Possessed  with  the  certainty  that  he 
had  not  deserved  what  had  befallen  him,  harassed  with 
doubt,  and  worn  out  with  pain  and  unkindness,  he  had 
assumed  (and  how  natural  that  he  should  assume  it)  that 
those  who  loved  him  should  not  have  been  hasty  to  be- 


The  Book  of  Job.  247 

lieve  evil  of  him;  he  had  spoken  to  them  as  he  really 
felt,  and  he  thought  that  he  might  have  looked  to  them 
for  something  warmer  and  more  sympathizing  than  such 
dreary  eloquence.  So  when  the  revelation  comes  upon 
him  of  what  was  passing  in  them,  he  attributes  it  (and 
now  he  is  unjust  to  them)  to  a  falsehood  of  heart,  and  not 
to  a  blindness  of  understanding.  Their  sermons,  so  kindly 
intended,  roll  past  him  as  a  dismal  mockery.  They  had 
been  shocked  (and  how  true  again  is  this  to  nature)  at 
his  passionate  cry  for  death.  "  Do  ye  reprove  words  ?  " 
he  says,  "  and  the  speeches  of  one  that  is  desperate,  which 
are  as  wind  ? "  It  was  but  poor  friendship  and  narrow 
wisdom.  He  had  looked  to  them  for  pity,  for  comfort, 
and  love.  He  had  longed  for  it  as  the  parched  caravans 
in  the  desert  for  the  water-streams,  and  "  his  brethren 
had  dealt  deceitfully  with  him."  The  brooks,  in  the  cool 
winter,  roll  in  a  full  turbid  torrent ;  "  what  time  it  waxes 
warm  they  vanish,  when  it  is  hot  they  are  consumed  out  of 
their  place ;  the  caravans  of  Tema  looked  for  them,  the 
companies  of  Sheba  waited  for  them  ;  they  were  confounded 
because  they  had  hoped ;  they  came  thither,  and  there  was 
nothing."  If  for  once  these  poor  men  could  have  trusted 
their  hearts,  if  for  once  they  could  have  believed  that  there 
might  be  "  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth "  than  were 
dreamt  of  in  their  philosophy  —  but  this  is  the  one  thing 
which  they  could  not  do,  which  the  theologian  proper 
never  has  done  or  will  do.  And  thus  whatever  of  calm- 
ness or  endurance  Job  alone,  on  his  ash-heap,  might  have 
conquered  for  himself,  is  all  scattered  away ;  and  as  the 
strong  gusts  of  passion  sweep  to  and  fro  across  his 
heart,  he  pours  himself  out  in  wild  fitful  music,  so  beauti- 
ful because  so  true,  not  answering  them  or  their  speeches, 
but  now  flinging  them  from  him  in  scorn,  now  appealing 
to  their  mercy,  or  turning  indignantly  to  God ;  now  pray- 
ing for  death ;  now  in  perplexity  doubting  whether,  in 
some  mystic  way  which  he  cannot  understand,  he  may  not, 


248  The  Book  of  Job. 

perhaps,  after  all,  really  have  sinned,  and  praying  to  bo 
shown  his  fault;  and  then  staggering  further  into  the 
darkness,  and  breaking  out  into  upbraidings  of  the 
Power  which  has  become  so  dreadful  an  enigma  to 
him.  '"'  Thou  inquirest  after  my  iniquity,  thou  searchest 
after  my  sin,  and  thou  knowest  that  I  am  not  wicked. 
Why  didst  thou  bring  me  forth  out  of  the  womb  ?  Oh, 
that  I  had  given  up  the  ghost,  and  no  eye  had  seen  me. 
Cease,  let  me  alone.  It  is  but  a  little  while  that  I  have  to 
live.  Let  me  alone,  that  I  may  take  comfort  a  little  before 
I  go,  whence  I  shall  not  return,  to  the  land  of  darkness  and 
the  shadow  of  death."  In  what  other  poem  in  the  world  is 
there  pathos  deep  as  this  ?  With  experience  so  stern  as 
his,  it  was  not  for  Job  to  be  calm,  and  self-possessed,  and 
delicate  in  his  words.  He  speaks  not  what  he  knows,  but 
what  he  feels ;  and  without  fear  the  writer  allows  him  to 
throw  out  his  passion  all  genuine  as  it  rises,  not  overmuch 
caring  how  nice  ears  might  be  offended,  but  contented  to 
be  true  to  the  real  emotion  of  a  genuine  human  heart.  So 
the  poem  runs  on  to  the  end  of  the  first  answer  to  Zophar. 
But  now,  with  admirable  fitness,  as  the  contest  goes  for- 
ward, the  relative  position  of  the  speakers  begins  to  change. 
Hitherto,  Job  only  had  been  passionate  ;  and  his  friends 
temperate  and  collected.  Now.  becoming  shocked  at  his 
obstinacy,  and  disappointed  in  the  result  of  their  homilies, 
they  stray  still  further  from  the  truth  in  an  endeavor  to 
strengthen  their  position,  and,  as  a  natural  consequence, 
visibly  grow  angry.  To  them,  Job's  vehement  and  desper- 
ate speeches  are  damning  evidence  of  the  truth  of  their 
suspicion.  Impiety  is  added  to  his  first  sin.  and  they  begin 
to  see  in  him  a  rebel  against  God.  At  first  they  had  been 
contented  to  speak  generally,  and  much  which  they  had 
urged  was  partially  true  ;  now  they  step  forward  to  a  direct 
application,  and  formally  and  personally  accuse  himself. 
Here  their  ground  is  positively  false  ;  and  with  delicate  art 
it  is  they  who  are  now  growing  violent,  and  wounded  self- 


TJie  JBook  of  Job.  249 

love  begins  to  show  behind  their  zeal  for  God ;  while  in 
contrast  to  them,  as  there  is  less  and  less  truth  in  what  they 
say,  Job  grows  more  and  more  collected.  For  a  time  it  had 
seemed  doubtful  how  he  would  endure  his  trial.  The  light 

O 

of  his  faith  was  burning  feebly  and  unsteadily ;  a  little 
more,  and  it  seemed  as  if  it  might  have  utterly  gone  out. 
But  at  last  the  storm  was  lulling;  as  the  charges  are 
brought  personally  home  to  him,  the  confidence  in  his  own 
real  innocence  rises  against  them.  He  had  before  known 
that  he  was  innocent ;  now  he  feels  the  strength  which  lies 
in  innocence,  as  if  God  were  beginning  to  reveal  Himself 
within  him,  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  after  outward  man- 
ifestation of  Himself. 

The  friends,  as  before,  repeat  one  another  with  but  little 
difference ;  the  sameness  being  of  course  intentional,  as 
showing  that  they  were  not  speaking  for  themselves,  but  as 
representatives  of  a  prevailing  opinion.  Eliphaz,  again, 
gives  the  note  which  the  others  follow.  Hear  this  Calvin- 
ist  of  the  old  world  :  "  Thy  own  mouth  condemneth  thee, 
and  thine  own  lips  testify  against  thee.  What  is  man  that 
he  should  be  clean,  and  he  that  is  born  of  a  woman  that  he 
should  be  righteous  ?  Behold,  he  putteth  no  trust  in  his 
saints ;  yea,  the  heavens  are  not  clean  in  his  sight ;  how 
much  more  abominable  and  filthy  is  man,  which  drinketh 
iniquity  like  water."  Strange,  that  after  all  these  thousands 
of  years  we  should  still  persist  in  this  degrading  confession, 
as  a  thing  which  it  is  impious  to  deny  and  impious  to 
attempt  to  render  otherwise,  when  Scripture  itself,  in  lan- 
guage so  emphatic,  declares  that  it  is  a  lie.  Job  is  innocent, 
perfect,  righteous.  God  Himself  bears  witness  to  it.  It  is 
Job  who  is  found  at  last  to  have  spoken  truth,  and  the 
friends  to  have  sinned  in  denying  it.  And  he  holds  fast  by 
his  innocency,  and  with  a  generous  confidence  thrusts  away 
the  misgivings  which  had  begun  to  cling  to  him.  Among 
his  complainings,  he  had  exclaimed,  that  God  was  remem- 
bering upon  him  the  sins  of  his  youth  —  not  denying  them  ; 


250  The  Book  of  Job. 

knowing  well  that  he,  like  others,  had  gone  astray  before 
he  had  learnt  to  control  himself,  but  feeling  that  at  least  in 
an  earthly  father  it  is  unjust  to  visit  the  faults  of  childhood 
on  the  matured  man  ;  feeling  that  he  had  long,  long  shaken 
them  off  from  him,  and  they  did  not  even  impair  the  prob- 
ity of  his  after-life.  But  now  these  doubts,  too,  pass 
away  in  the  brave  certainty  that  God  is  not  less  just  than 
man.  As  the  deuouncings  grow  louder  and  darker,  he  ap- 
peals from  his  narrow  judges  to  the  Supreme  Tribunal  — 
calls  on  God  to  hear  him  and  to  try  his  cause  —  and  then, 
in  the  strength  of  this  appeal  the  mist  rises  from  before  his 
eyes.  His  sickness  is  mortal ;  he  has  no  hope  in  life,  and 
death  is  near ;  but  the  intense  feeling  that  justice  must  and 
will  be  done,  holds  to  him  closer  and  closer.  God  may 
appear  on  earth  for  him ;  or  if  that  be  too  bold  a  hope, 
and  death  finds  him  as  he  is  — what  is  death  then?  God 
will  clear  his  memory  in  the  place  where  he  lived ;  his 
injuries  will  be  righted  over  his  grave ;  while  for  himself, 
like  a  sudden  gleam  of  sunlight  between  clouds,  a  clear, 
bright  hope  beams  up,  that  he  too,  then,  in  another  life, 
if  not  in  this,  when  his  skin  is  wasted  off  his  bones,  and 
the  worms  have  done  their  work  on  the  prison  of  his  spirit, 
he  too,  at  last,  may  then  see  God  ;  may  see  Him,  and  have 
his  pleadings  heard. 

With  such  a  hope,  or  even  the  shadow  of  one,  he  turns 
back  to  the  world  again  to  look  at  it.  Facts  against  which 
he  had  before  closed  his  eyes  lie  allows  and  confronts,  and 
he  sees  that  his  own  little  experience  is  but  the  reflection 
of  a  law.  You  tell  me,  he  seems  to  say,  that  the  good  are 
rewarded,  and  that  the  wicked  are  punished ;  that  God  is 
just,  and  that  this  is  always  so.  Perhaps  it  is,  or  will  be, 
but  not  in  the  way  which  you  imagine.  You  have  known 
me,  you  have  known  what  my  life  has  been ;  you  see  what 
I  am,  and  it  is  no  difficulty  to  you.  You  prefer  believing 
that  I,  whom  you  call  your  friend,  am  a  deceiver  or  a  pre- 
tender, to  admitting  the  possibility  of  the  falsehood  of  your 


The  Book  of  Job.  251 

hypothesis.  You  will  not  listen  to  my  assurance,  and  you 
are  angry  with  me  because  I  will  not  lie  against  my  own 
soul,  and  acknowledge  sins  which  I  have  not  committed. 

*  o 

You  appeal  to  the  course  of  the  world  in  proof  of  your 
faith,  and  challenge  me  to  answer  you.  Well,  then,  I 
accept  your  challenge.  The  world  is  not  what  you  say. 
You  have  told  me  what  you  have  seen  of  it ;  I  will  tell  you 
what  I  have  seen. 

"Even  while  I  remember  I  am  afraid,  and  trembling 
taketh  hold  upon  my  flesh.  Wherefore  do  the  wicked 
become  old,  yea,  and  are  mighty  in  power  ?  Their  seed  is 
established  in  their  sight  with  them,  and  their  offspring 
before  their  eyes.  Their  houses  are  safe  from  fear,  neither 
is  the  rod  of  God  upon  them.  Their  bull  gendereth  and 
faileth  not;  their  cow  calveth,  and  casteth  not  her  calf. 
They  send  forth  their  little  ones  like  a  flock,  and  their 
children  dance.  They  take  the  timbrel  and  harp,  and 
rejoice  at  the  sound  of  the  organ.  They  spend  their  days 
in  wealth,  and  in  a  moment  go  down  into  the  grave. 
Therefore  they  say  unto  God,  Depart  from  us,  for  we  de- 
sire not  the  knowledge  of  thy  ways.  What  is  the  Almighty 
that  we  should  serve  him  ?  and  what  profit  should  we  have 
if  we  pray  to  him  ?  " 

Will  you  quote  the  weary  proverb  ?  Will  you  say  that 
"  God  layeth  up  his  iniquity  for  his  children  ?  "  (Our  trans- 
lators have  wholly  lost  the  sense  of  this  passage,  and  en- 
deavor to  make  Job  acknowledge  what  he  is  steadfastly 
denying.)  Well,  and  what  then  ?  What  will  he  care  ? 
"  Will  his  own  eye  see  his  own  fall  ?  Will  he  drink  the 
wrath  of  the  Almighty?  What  are  the  fortunes  of  his 
house  to  him  if  the  number  of  his  own  months  is  fulfilled  ?  " 
One  man  is  good  and  another  wicked,  one  is  happy  and 
another  is  miserable.  In  the  great  indifference  of  nature 
they  share  alike  in  the  common  lot.  "  They  lie  down  alike 
in  the  dust,  and  the  worms  cover  them." 

Ewald,  and  many  other  critics,  suppose  that  Job  was 


252  T/te  Boole  of  Jot. 

hurried  away  by  his  feelings  to  say  all  this ;  and  that  in  his 
calmer  moments  he  must  have  felt  that  it  was  untrue.  It 
is  a  point  on  which  we  must  decline  accepting  even  Ewald's 
high  authority.  Even  then,  in  those  old  times,  it  was  be- 
ginning to  be  terribly  true.  Even  then  the  current  theory 
was  obliged  to  bend  to  large  exceptions ;  and  what  Job  saw 
as  exceptions  we  see  round  us  everywhere.  It  was  true 
then,  it  is  infinitely  more  true  now,  that  what  is  called 
virtue  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word,  still  more  that 
nobleness,  godliness,  or  heroism  of  character  in  any  form 
whatsoever,  have  nothing  to  do  with  this  or  that  man's 
prosperity,  or  even  happiness.  The  thoroughly  vicious  man 
is  no  doubt  wretched  enough ;  but  the  worldly,  prudent, 
self-restraining  man,  with  his  fire  senses,  which  he  under- 
stands how  to  gratify  with  tempered  indulgence,  with  a 
conscience  satisfied  with  the  hack  routine  of  what  is  called 
respectability,  —  such  a  man  feels  no  wretchedness ;  no 
inward  uneasiness  disturbs  him,  no  desires  which  he  cannot 
gratify  ;  and  this  though  he  be  the  basest  and  moat  con- 
temptible slave  of  his  own  selfishness.  Providence  will 
not  interfere  to  punish  him.  Let  him  obey  the  laws  under 
which  prosperity  is  obtainable,  and  he  will  obtain  it,  let  him 
never  fear.  He  will  obtain  it,  be  he  base  or  noble.  Nature 
is  indifferent ;  the  famine  and  the  earthquake,  and  the 
blight  or  the  accident,  will  not  -discriminate  to  strike  him. 
He  may  insure  himself  against  casualties  in  these  days  of 
ours,  with  the  money  perhaps  which  a  better  man  would 
have  given  away,  and  he  will  have  his  reward.  He  need 
not  doubt  it. 

And,  again,  it  is  not  true,  as  optimists  would  per- 
suade us,  that  such  prosperity  brings  no  real  pleasure.  A 
man  with  no  high  aspirations,  who  thrives,  and  makes 
money,  and  envelops  himself  in  comforts,  is  as  happy  as 
such  a  nature  can  be.  If  unbroken  satisfaction  be  the 
most  blessed  state  for  a  man  (and  this  certainly  is  the 
practical  notion  of  happiness),  he  is  the  happiest  of  men. 


The  Book  of  Job.  253 

Nor  are  those  idle  phrases  any  truer,  that  the  good  man's 
goodness  is  a  never-ceasing  sunshine  ;  that  virtue  is  its 
own  reward,  &c.,  &c.  If  men  truly  virtuous  care  to  be  re- 
warded for  it,  their  virtue  is  but  a  poor  investment  of  theii 
moral  capital.  Was  Job  so  happy  then  on  that  ash-heap 
of  his,  the  mark  of  the  world's  scorn,  and  the  butt  for  the 
spiritual  archery  of  the  theologian,  alone  in  his  forlorn  na- 
kedness, like  some  old  dreary  stump  which  the  lightning  has 
scathed,  rotting  away  in  the  wind  and  the  rain  ?  If  hap- 
piness be  indeed  what  we  men  are  sent  into  this  world  to 
seek  for,  those  hitherto  thought  the  noblest  among  us  were 
the  pitifulest  and  wretchedest.  Surely  it  was  no  error  in 
Job.  It  was  that  real  insight  which  once  was  given  to  all 
the  world  in  Christianity,  however  we  have  forgotten  it  now. 
Job  was  learning  to  see  that  it  was  not  in  the  possession  of 
enjoyment,  no,  nor  of  happiness  itself,  that  the  difference 
lies  between  the  good  and  the  bad.  True,  it  might  be  that 
God  sometimes,  even  generally,  gives  such  happiness  — 
gives  it  in  what  Aristotle  calls  an  eTriyiyvo/xeyov  re'Ao?,  but  it 
is  no  part  of  the  terms  on  which  He  admits  us  to  his  ser- 
vice, still  less  is  it  the  end  which  we  may  propose  to  our- 
selves on  entering  his  service.  Happiness  He  gives  to 
whom  He  will,  or  leaves  to  the  angel  of  Nature  to  distrib- 
ute among  those  who  fulfill  the  laws  upon  which  it  depends. 
But  to  serve  God  and  to  love  Him  is  higher  and  better 
than  happiness,  though  it  be  with  wounded  feet,  and  bleed- 
ing brows,  and  hearts  loaded  with  sorrow. 

Into  this  high  faith  Job  is  rising,  treading  his  tempta- 
tions under  his  feet,  and  finding  in  them  a  ladder  on  which 
his  spirit  rises.  Thus  he  is  passing  further  and  even  fur- 
ther from  his  friends,  soaring  where  their  imaginations 
cannot  follow  him.  To  them  he  is  a  blasphemer  whom 
they  gaze  at  with  awe  and  terror.  They  had  charged  him 
with  sinning  on  the  strength  of  their  hypothesis,  and  he 
has  answered  with  a  deliberate  denial  of  it.  Losing  now 
all  mastery  over  themselves,  they  pour  out  a  torrent  of 


254  The  Book  of  Job. 

mere  extravagant  invective  and  baseless  falsehood,  which 
in  the  calmer  outset  they  would  have  blushed  to  think  of. 
They  know  no  evil  of  Job,  but  they  do  not  hesitate  to  con- 
vert conjecture  into  certainty,  and  specify  in  detail  the  par- 
ticular crimes  which  he  must  have  committed.  He  ought 
to  have  committed  them,  and  so  he  had ;  the  old  argument 
then  as  now.  "  Is  not  thy  wickedness  great  ?  "  says  Eliphaz. 
"  Thou  hast  taken  a  pledge  from  thy  brother  for  nought, 
and  stripped  the  naked  of  their  clothing  ;  thou  hast  not 
given  water  to  the  weary,  and  thou  hast  withholden  bread 
from  the  hungry ; "  and  so  on  through  a  series  of  mere 
distracted  lies.  But  the  time  was  past  when  words  like 
these  could  make  Job  angry.  Bildad  follows  them  up  with 
an  attempt  to  frighten  him  by  a  picture  of  the  power  of 
that  God  whom  he  was  blaspheming ;  but  Job  cuts  short 
his  harangue,  and  ends  it  for  him  in  a  spirit  of  loftiness 
which  Bildad  could  not  have  approached ;  and  then  proud- 
ly and  calmly  rebukes  them  all,  no  longer  in  scorn  and 
irony,  but  in  high,  tranquil  self-possession.  "  God  forbid 
that  I  should  justify  you,"  he  says  ;  "  till  I  die  I  will  not 
remove  my  integrity  from  me.  My  righteousness  I  hold 
fast,  and  will  not  let  it  go.  My  heart  shall  not  reproach 
me  so  long  as  I  live." 

So  far  all  has  been  clear,  each  party,  with  increasing 
confidence,  having  insisted  on  their  own  position,  and  de- 
nounced their  adversaries.  A  difficulty  now  arises  which, 
at  first  sight,  appears  insurmountable.  As  the  chapters 
are  at  present  printed,  the  entire  of  the  twenty-seventh  is 
assigned  to  Job,  and  the  paragraph  from  the  eleventh  to 
the  twenty-third  verses  is  in  direct  contradiction  to  all 
which  he  has  maintained  before  —  is,  in  fact,  a  concession 
of  having  been  wrong  from  the  beginning.  Ewald,  who, 
as  we  said  above,  himself  refuses  to  allow  the  truth  of 
Job's  last  and  highest  position,  supposes  that  he  is  here 
receding  from  it,  and  confessing  wrhat  an  over-precipitate 
passion  had  betrayed  him  into  denying.  For  many  rea- 


The  Bock  of  Job.  255 

sons,  principally  because  we  are  satisfied  that  Job  said 
then  no  more  than  the  real  fact,  we  cannot  think  Ewald 
right ;  and  the  concessions  are  too  large  and  too  inconsist- 
ent to  be  reconciled  even  with  his  own  general  theory  of 
the  poem.  Another  solution  of  the  difficulty  is  very  sim- 
ple, although  it  is  to  be  admitted  that  it  rather  cuts  the 
knot  than  unties  it.  Eliphaz  and  Bildad  have  each  spoken 
a  third  time ;  the  symmetry  of  the  general  form  requires 
that  now  Zophar  should  speak ;  and  the  suggestion,  we  be- 
lieve, was  first  made  by  Dr.  Kennicott,  that  he  did  speak, 
and  that  the  verses  in  question  belong  to  him.  Any  one 
who  is  accustomed  to  MSS.  will  understand  easily  how 
such  a  mistake,  if  it  be  one,  might  have  arisen.  Even  in 
Shakespeare,  the  speeches  in  the  early  editions  are  in  many 
instances  wrongly  divided,  and  assigned  to  the  wrong  per- 
sons. It  might  have  arisen  from  inadvertence;  it  might 
have  arisen  from  the  foolishness  of  some  Jewish  transcriber, 
who  resolved,  at  all  costs,  to  drag  the  book  into  harmony 
with  Judaism,  and  make  Job  unsay  his  heresy.  This  vifV 
has  the  merit  of  fully  clearing  up  the  obscurity.  Another, 
however,  has  been  suggested  by  Eichorn,  who  originally 
followed  Kennicott,  but  discovered,  as  he  supposed,  a  less 
violent  hypothesis,  which  was  equally  satisfactory.  Eich- 
orn imagines  the  verses  to  be  a  summary  by  Job  of  his 
adversaries'  opinions,  as  if  he  said,  — "  Listen  now ;  you 
know  what  the  facts  are  as  well  as  I,  and  yet  you  main- 
tain this ; "  and  then  passed  on  with  his  indirect  reply 
to  it.  It  is  possible  that  Eichorn  may  be  right  —  at  any 
rate,  either  he  is  right,  or  else  Dr.  Kennicott  is.  Certainly 
Ewald  is  not.  Taken  as  an  account  of  Job's  own  convic- 
tion, the  passage  contradicts  the  burden  of  the  whole  poem. 
Passing  it  by,  therefore,  and  going  to  what  immediately 
follows,  we  arrive  at  what,  in  a  human  sense,  is  the  final 
climax  —  Job's  victory  and  triumph.  He  had  appealed  to 
God,  and  God  had  not  appeared  ;  he  had  doubted  and 
fought  against  his  doubts,  and  at  last  had  crushed  them 


256  The  Book  of  M. 

down.  He,  too,  had  been  taught  to  look  for  God  in  out-- 
ward  judgments  ;  and  when  his  own  experience  had  shown 
him  his  mistake,  he  knew  not  where  to  turn.  He  had  been 
leaning  on  a  bruised  reed,  and  it  had  run  into  his  hand 
and  pierced  him.  But  as  soon  as  in  the  speeches  of  his 
friends  he  saw  it  all  laid  down  in  its  weakness  and  its  false 
conclusions  —  when  he  saw  the  defenders  of  it  wandering 
further  and  further  from  what  he  knew  to  be  true,  growing 
every  moment,  as  if  from  a  consciousness  of  the  unsound- 
ness  of  their  standing  ground,  more  violent,  obstinate,  and 
unreasonable,  the  scales  fell  more  and  more  from  his  eyes 
—  he  had  seen  the  fact  that  the  wicked  might  prosper,  and 
in  learning  to  depend  upon  his  innocency  he  had  felt  that 
the  good  man's  support  was  there,  if  it  was  anywhere  ;  and 
at  last,  with  all  his  heart,  was  reconciled  to  the  truth.  The 
mystery  of  the  outer  world  becomes  deeper  to  him,  but  he 
does  not  any  more  try  to  understand  it.  The  wisdom 
which  can  compass  that  mystery,  he  knows,  is  not  in  man, 
though  man  search  for  it  deeper  and  harder  than  the 
miner  searches  for  the  hidden  treasures  of  the  earth ;  the 
wisdom  which  alone  is  attainable  is  resignation  to  God. 

"  Where,"  he  cries,  "  shall  wisdom  be  found,  and  where 
is  the  place  of  understanding?  Man  knoweth  not  the 
price  thereof,  neither  is  it  found  in  the  land  of  the  living. 
The  depth  said  it  is  not  with  me  ;  and  the  sea  said  it  is  not 
in  me.  It  is  hid  from  the  eyes  of  all  living,  and  kept  close 
from  the  fowls  of  the  air.1  God  understandeth  the  way 
thereof,  and  He  knoweth  the  place  thereof  [He,  not  man, 
understands  the  mysteries  of  the  world  which  He  has 
made].  And  unto  man  He  said.  Behold  !  the  fear  of  the 
Lord,  that  is  wisdom  ;  and  to  depart  from  evil,  that  is 
understanding." 

Here,  therefore,  it  might  seem  as  if  all  was  over.    There 

1  An  allusion,  perhaps,  to  the  old  bird  auguries.  The  birds,  as  the  in- 
habitants of  the  air,  were  supposed  to  be  the  messengers  between  heaven 
and  earth. 


TJie  Book  of  Job.  257 

is  no  clearer  or  purer  faith  possible  for  man  ;  and  Job  had 
achieved  it.  His  evil  had  turned  to  good  ;  and  sorrow  had 
severed  for  him  the  last  links  which  bound  him  to  lower 
things.  He  had  felt  that  he  could  do  without  happiness,  that 
it  was  no  longer  essential,  and  that  he  could  live  on,  and  still 
love  God,  and  cling  to  Him.  But  he  is  not  described  as 
of  preternatural,  or  at  all  Titanic  nature,  but  as  very  man, 
full  of  all  human  tenderness  and  susceptibility.  His  old 
life  was  still  beautiful  to  him.  He  does  not  hate  it  because 
he  can  renounce  it ;  and  now  that  the  str.iggle  is  over,  the 
battle  fought  and  won,  and  his  heart  has  flowed  over  in 
that  magnificent  song  of  victory,  the  note  once  more 
changes :  he  turns  back  to  earth  to  linger  over  those  old 
departed  days,  with  which  the  present  is  so  hard  a  con- 
trast ;  and  his  parable  dies  away  in  a  strain  of  plaintive, 
but  resigned  melancholy.  Once  more  he  throws  himself 
on  God,  no  longer  in  passionate  expostulation,  but  in 
pleading  humility.1  And  then  comes  (perhaps,  as  Ewald 
says,  it  could  not  have  come  before)  the  answer  out  of  the 
whirlwind.  Job  had  called  on  God,  and  prayed  that  He 

1  The  speech  of  Elihu,  which  lies  between  Job's  last  words  and  God's 
appearance,  is  now  decisively  pronounced  by  Hebrew  scholars  not  to  be 
genuine.  The  most  superficial  reader  will  have  been  perplexed  by  the  in- 
troduction of  a  speaker  to  •whom  no  allusion  is  made,  either  in  the  Prologue 
or  the  Epilogue;  by  a  long  dissertation,  which  adds  nothing  to  the  progress 
of  the  argument,  proceeding  evidently  on  the  false  hypothesis  of  the  three 
friends,  and  betraying  not  the  faintest  conception  of  the  real  cause  of  Job's 
sufferings.  And  the  suspicions  which  such  an  anomaly  would  naturally 
suggest,  are  now  made  certainties  by  a  fuller  knowledge  of  the  language, 
and  the  detection  of  a  different  hand.  The  interpolator  has  unconsciously 
confessed  the  feeling  which  allowed  him  to  take  so  great  a  liberty.  He, 
too,  possessed  with  the  old  Jew  theory,  was  unable  to  accept  in  its  full- 
ness so  great  a  contradiction  to  it;  and,  missing  the  spirit  of  the  poem,  he 
believed  that  God's  honor  could  still  be  vindicated  in  the  old  way.  "  His 
tvrath  was  kindled"  against  the  friends,  because  they  could  not  answer 
Job ;  and  against  Job,  because  he  would  not  be  answered ;  and  conceiving 
himself  "  full  of  matter,"  and  "  ready  to  burst  like  new  bottles,"  he  could 
not  contain  himself,  and  delivered  into  the  text  a  sermon  on  the  Theodice, 
such,  we  suppose,  as  formed  the  current  doctrine  of  the  time  in  which  he 
Kved.  . 

17 


258  The  Book  of  Job. 

might  appear,  that  he  might  plead  his  cause  with  Him  ;  and 
now  He  comes,  and  what  will  Job  do  ?  He  conies  not  as  the 
healing  spirit  in  the  heart  of  man ;  but,  as  Job  had  at  first 
demanded,  the  outward  God,  the  Almighty  Creator  of  the 
universe,  and  clad  in  the  terrors  and  the  glory  of  it.  Job, 
in  his  first  precipitancy,  had  desired  to  reason  with  Him  on 
his  government.  The  poet,  in  gleaming  lines,  describes 
for  an  answer  the  universe  as  it  then  was  known,  the  maj- 
esty and  awfulness  of  it ;  and  then  asks  whether  it  is  this 
which  he  requires  to  have  explained  to  him,  or  which  he 
believes  himself  capable  of  conducting.  The  revelation 
acts  on  Job  as  the  sign  of  the  Macrocosmos  on  the  modern 
Faust ;  but  when  he  sinks,  crushed,  it  is  not  as  the  rebel- 
lious upstart,  struck  down  in  his  pride,  —  for  he  had  him- 
self, partially  at  least,  subdued  his  own  presumption,  —  but 
as  a  humble  penitent,  struggling  to  overcome  his  weakness. 
He  abhors  himself  for  his  murmurs,  and  "  repents  in  dust 
and  ashes."  It  will  have  occurred  to  every  one  that  the 
secret  which  has  been  revealed  to  the  reader  is  not,  after 
all,  revealed  to  Job  or  to  his  friends,  and  for  this  plain  rea- 
son :  the  burden  of  the  drama  is,  not  that  we  do,  but  that 
we  do  not,  and  cannot,  know  the  mystery  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  world,  —  that  it  is  not  for  man  to  seek  it,  or 
for  God  to  reveal  it.  We,  the  readers,  are,  in  this  one 
instance,  admitted  behind  the  scenes,  —  for  once,  in  this 
single  case,  —  because  it  was  necessary  to  meet  the  received 
theory  by  a  positive  fact  which  contradicted  it.  But  the 
explanation  of  one  case  need  not  be  the  explanation  of 
another ;  our  business  is  to  do  what  we  know  to  be  right, 
and  ask  no  questions.  The  veil  which  in  the  Egyptian 
legend  lay  before  the  face  of  Isis  is  not  to  be  raised ;  and 
we  are  not  to  seek  to  penetrate  secrets  which  are  not  ours. 
While,  however,  God  does  not  condescend  to  justify  his 
ways  to  man,  He  gives  judgment  on  the  past  controversy. 
The  self-constituted  pleaders  for  him,  the  acceptors  of  his 
person,  were  all  wrong  ;  and  Job,  —  the  passionate,  vehe- 


The  Book  of  Job.  259 

ment,  scornful,  misbelieving  Job,  —  he  had  spoken  the 
truth  ;  he  at  least  had  spoken  facts,  and  they  had  been  de- 
fending a  transient  theory  as  an  everlasting  truth. 

"  And  it  was  so,  that  after  the  Lord  had  spoken  these 
words  to  Job,  the  Lord  said  to  Eliphaz  the  Temanite,  My 
wrath  is  kindled  against  thee  and  against  thy  two  friends  ; 
for  ye  have  not  spoken  of  me  the  thing  that  is  right,  as  my 
servant  Job  hath.  Therefore  take  unto  you  now  seven  bul- 
locks and  seven  rams,  and  go  to  my  servant  Job  ;  and  offer 
for  yourselves  a  burnt-offering.  And  my  servant  Job  shall 
pray  for  you,  and  him  will  I  accept.  Lest  I  deal  with  you 
after  your  folly,  for  that  ye  have  not  spoken  of  me  the  thing 
which  is  right,  like  my  servant  Job." 

One  act  of  justice  remains.  Knowing  as  we  do  the 
cause  of  Job's  misfortunes,  and  that  as  soon  as  his  trial  was 
over  it  was  no  longer  operative,  our  sense  of  fitness  could 
not  be  satisfied  unless  he  were  indemnified  outwardly  for 
his  outward  sufferings.  Satan  is  defeated,  and  Job's  integ- 
rity proved  ;  and  there  is  no  reason  why  the  general  law 
should  be  interfered  with,  which,  however  large  the  excep- 
tions, tends  to  connect  goodness  and  prosperity ;  or  why 
obvious  calamities,  obviously  undeserved,  should  remain 
any  more  unremoved.  Perhaps,  too,  a  deeper  lesson  still 
lies  below  his  restoration  —  something  perhaps  of  this  kind. 
Prosperity,  enjoyment,  happiness,  comfort,  peace,  whatever 
be  the  name  by  which  we  designate  that  state  in  which  life 
is  to  our  own  selves  pleasant  and  delightful,  as  long  as  they 
are  sought  or  prized  as  things  essential,  so  far  have  a  tend- 
ency to  disennoble  our  nature,  and  are  a  sign  that  we  are 
still  in  servitude  to  selfishness.  Only  when  they  lie  out- 
side us,  as  ornaments  merely  to  be  worn  or  laid  aside  as 
God  pleases,  —  only  then  may  such  things  be  possessed 
with  impunity.  Job's  heart  in  early  times  had  clung  to 
them  more  than  he  knew,  but  now  he  was  purged  clean, 
and  they  were  restored  because  he  had  ceased  to  need 
them. 


260  The  Book  of  Job. 

Such  in  outline  is  this  wonderful  poem.  "With  the  mate- 
rial of  which  it  is  woven  we  have  not  here  been  concerned, 
although  it  is  so  rich  and  pregnant  that  we  might  with  lit- 
tle difficulty  construct  out  of  it  a  complete  picture  of  the 
world  as  then  it  was  :  its  life,  knowledge,  arts,  habits,  super- 
stitions, hopes,  and  fears.  The  subject  is  the  problem  of 
all  mankind,  and  the  composition  embraces  no  less  wide  a 
range.  But  what  we  are  here  most  interested  upon  is  the 
epoch  which  it  marks  in  the  progress  of  mankind,  as  the 
first  recorded  struggle  of  a  new  experience  with  an  estab- 
lished orthodox  belief.  True,  for  hundreds  of  years,  per- 
haps for  a  thousand,  the  superstition  against  which  it  was 
directed  continued.  When  Christ  came  it  was  still  in  its 
vitality.  Nay,  as  we  saw,  it  is  alive,  or  in  a  sort  of  mock 
life,  among  us  at  this  very  day.  But  even  those  who  re- 
tained their  imperfect  belief  had  received  into  their  canon 
a  book  which  treated  it  with  contumely  and  scorn,  so  irre- 
sistible was  the  majesty  of  truth. 

In  days  like  these,  when  we  hear  so  much  of  progress, 
it  is  worth  while  to  ask  ourselves  what  advances  we  have 
made  further  in  the  same  direction  ?  and  once  more,  at  the 
risk  of  some  repetition,  let  us  look  at  the  position  in  which 
this  book  leaves  us.  It  had  been  assumed  that  man,  if  he 
lived  a  just  and  upright  life,  had  a  right  to  expect  to  be 
happy.  Happiness,  "his  being's  end  and  aim,"  was  his 
legitimate  and  covenanted  reward.  If  God  therefore  was 
just,  such  a  man  would  be  happy ;  and  inasmuch  as  God 
was  just,  the  man  who  was  not  happy  had  not  deserved  to 
be.  There  is  no  flaw  in  this  argument ;  and  if  it  is  un- 
sound, the  fallacy  can  only  lie  in  the  supposed  right  to 
happiness.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of  inward  consolations.  Job 
felt  them,  but  they  were  not  every  thing.  They  did  not  re- 
lieve the  anguish  of  his  wounds  ;  they  did  not  make  the 
loss  of  his  children,  or  his  friends'  unkindness,  any  the  less 
painful  to  him. 

The  poet,  indeed,  restores  him  in  the  book ;  but  in  life 


The  Book  of  Job.  261 

it  need  not  have  been  so.  He  might  have  died  upon  his 
ash-heap,  as  thousands  of  good  men  have  died,  and  will  die 
again,  in  misery.  Happiness,  therefore,  is  not  what  we  are 
to  look  for.  Our  place  is  to  be  true  to  the  best  which  we 
know,  to  seek  that  and  do  that ;  and  if  by  "  virtue  its  own 
reward  "  be  meant  that  the  good  man  cares  only  to  continue 
good,  desiring  nothing  more,  then  it  is  a  true  and  noble  say- 
ing. But  if  virtue  be  valued  because  it  is  politic,  because  in 
pursuit  of  it  will  be  found  most  enjoyment  and  fewest  suffer- 
ings, then  it  is  not  noble  any  more,  and  it  is  turning  the  truth 
of  God  into  a  lie.  Let  us  do  right,  and  whether  happiness 
come  or  unhappiness  it  is  no  very  mighty  matter.  If  it 
come,  life  will  be  sweet ;  if  it  do  not  come,  life  will  be  bitter 
—  bitter,  not  sweet,  and  yet  to  be  borne.  On  such  a  theory 
alone  is  the  government  of  this  world  intelligibly  just. 
The  well-being  of  our  souls  depends  only  on  what  we 
are;  and  nobleness  of  character  is  nothing  else  but  steady 
love  of  good  and  steady  scorn  of  evil.  The  government 
of  the  world  is  a  problem  while  the  desire  of  selfish  en- 
joyment survives  ;  and  when  justice  is  not  done  according 
to  such  standard  (which  will  not  be  till  the  day  after 
doomsday,  and  not  then),  self-loving  men  will  still  ask, 
Why  ?  and  find  no  answer.  Only  to  those  who  have  the 
heart  to  say,  "  We  can  do  without  that ;  it  is  not  what  we 
ask  or  desire,"  is  there  no  secret.  Man  will  have  what  he 
deserves,  and  will  find  what  is  really  best  for  him,  exactly 
as  he  honestly  seeks  for  it.  Happiness  may  fly  away, 
pleasure  pall  or  cease  to  be  obtainable,  wealth  decay, 
friends  fail  or  prove  unkind,  and  fame  turn  to  infamy ;  but 
the  power  to  serve  God  never  fails,  and  the  love  of  Him  is 
never  rejected. 

Most  of  us,  at  one  time  or  other  of  our  lives,  have  known 
something  of  love  —  of  that  only  pure  love  in  which  no 
self  is  left  remaining.  We  have  loved  as  children,  we 
have  loved  as  lovers ;  some  of  us  have  learned  to  love  a 
cause,  a  faith,  a  country;  and  what  love  would  that  be 


262  Tlie  Book  of  Job. 

which  existed  only  with  a  prudent  view  to  after-interests. 
Surely  there  is  a  love  which  exults  in  the  power  of  self- 
abandonment,  and  can  glory  in  the  privilege  of  suffering 
for  what  is  good.  Que  mon  nom  soit  fletri,  pourvu  que  la 
France  soil  Hire,  said  Danton ;  and  those  wild  patriots  who 
had  trampled  into  scorn  the  faith  in  an  immortal  life  in 
which  they  would  be  rewarded  for  what  they  were  suffering, 
went  to  their  graves  as  beds,  for  the  dream  of  a  people's 
liberty.  Justice  is  done  ;  the  balance  is  not  deranged.  It 
only  seems  deranged,  as  long  as  we  have  not  learned  to 
serve  without  looking  to  be  paid  for  it 

Such  is  the  theory  of  life  which  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Book  of  Job ;  a  faith  which  has  flashed  up  in  all  times 
and  all  lands,  wherever  high-minded  men  were  to  be  found, 
and  which  passed  in  Christianity  into  the  acknowledged 
creed  of  half  the  world.  The  cross  was  the  new  symbol,  the 
Divine  sufferer  the  great  example  ;  and  mankind  answered 
to  the  call,  because  the  appeal  was  not  to  what  was  poor 
and  selfish  in  them,  but  to  whatever  of  best  and  bravest 
was  in  their  nature.  The  law  of  reward  and  punishment 
was  superseded  by  the  law  of  love.  Thou  shalt  love  God  and 
thou  shalt  love  man  ;  and  that  was  not  love  —  men  knew 
it  once — which  was  bought  by  the  prospect  of  reward. 
Times  are  changed  with  us  now.  Thou  shalt  love  God 
and  thou  shalt  love  man,  in  the  hands  of  a  Paley,  are  found 
to  mean  no  more  than,  Thou  shalt  love  thyself  after  an 
enlightened  manner.  And  the  same  base  tone  has  satu- 
rated not  only  our  common  feelings,  but  our  Christian 
theologies  and  our  Antichristian  philosophies.  A  prudent 
regard  to  our  future  interests ;  an  abstinence  from  present 
unlawful  pleasures,  because  they  will  entail  the  loss  of 
greater  pleasure  by  and  by,  or  perhaps  be  paid  for  with 
pain,  —  this  is  called  virtue  now  ;  and  the  belief  that  such 
beings  as  men  can  be  influenced  by  any  more  elevated  feel- 
ings, is  smiled  at  as  the  dream  of  enthusiasts  whose  hearts 
have  outrun  their  understandings.  Indeed,  he  were  but  a 


The  Book  of  Job.  263 

poor  lover  whose  devotion  to  his  mistress  lay  resting  on 
the  feeling  that  a  marriage  with  her  would  conduce  to  his 
own  comforts.  That  were  a  poor  patriot  who  served  his 
country  for  the  hire  which  his  country  would  give  to  him. 
And  we  should  think  but  poorly  of  a  son  who  thus  ad- 
dressed his  earthly  father :  "  Father,  on  whom  my  for- 
tunes depend,  teach  me  to  do  what  pleases  thee,  that  I, 
pleasing  thee  in  all  things,  may  obtain  those  good  things 
which  thou  hast  promised  to  give  to  thy  obedient  children." 
If  any  of  us  who  have  lived  in  so  meagre  a  faith  venture, 
by  and  by,  to  put  in  our  claims,  Satan  will  be  likely  to  say 
of  us  (with  better  reason  than  he  did  of  Job),  "  Did  they 
serve  God  for  nought,  then  ?  Take  their  reward  from 
them,  and  they  will  curse  him  to  his  face."  If  Christianity 
had  never  borne  itself  more  loftily  than  this,  do  we  sup- 
pose that  those  fierce  Norsemen  who  had  learned,  in  the 
fiery  war-songs  of  the  Edda,  of  what  stuff  the  hearts  of 
heroes  are  composed,  would  have  fashioned  their  sword- 
hilts  into  crosses,  and  themselves  into  a  crusading  chiv- 
alry ?  Let  us  not  dishonor  our  great  fathers  with  the 
dream  of  it.  The  Christians,  like  the  Stoics  and  the  Epi- 
cureans, would  have  lived  their  little  day  among  the  ignoble 
sects  of  an  effete  civilization,  and  would  have  passed  off 
and  been  heard  of  no  more.  It  was  in  another  spirit  that 
those  first  preachers  of  righteousness  went  out  upon  their 
warfare  with  evil.  They  preached,  not  enlightened  pru- 
dence, but  purity,  justice,  goodness  ;  holding  out  no  prom- 
ises in  this  world  except  of  suffering  as  their  great  Mas- 
ter had  suffered,  and  rejoicing  that  they  were  counted 
worthy  to  suffer  for  his  sake.  And  that  crown  of  glory 
which  they  did  believe  to  await  them  in  a  life  beyond  the 
grave,  was  no  enjoyment  of  what  they  had  surrendered  in 
life,  was  not  enjoyment  at  all  in  any  sense  which  human 
thought  or  language  can  attach  to  the  words;  as  little 
like  it  as  the  crown  of  love  is  like  it,  which  the  true  lover 
looks  for  when  at  last  he  obtains  his  mistress.  It  was  to 
be  with  Christ  —  to  lose  themselves  in  Him. 


264  The  Book  of  Job. 

How  these  high  feelings  ebbed  away,  and  Christianity 
became  what  we  know  it,  we  are  partially  beginning  to  see. 
The  living  spirit  organized  for  itself  a  body  of  perishable 
flesh  :  not  only  the  real  gains  of  real  experience,  but  mere 
conjectural  hypotheses,  current  at  the  day  for  the  solution 
of  unexplained  phenomena,  became  formulas  and  articles 
of  faith.  Again,  as  before,  the  living  and  the  dead  were 
bound  together,  and  the  seeds  of  decay  were  already 
planted  on  the  birth  of  a  constructed  polity. 

But  there  was  another  cause  allied  to  this,  and  yet  dif- 
ferent from  it,  which,  though  a  law  of  human  nature  itself, 
seems  nowadays  altogether  forgotten.  In  the  rapid  and 
steady  advance  of  our  knowledge  of  material  things,  we 
are  apt  to  believe  that  all  our  knowledge  follows  the  same 
law  ;  that  it  is  merely  generalized  experience  ;  that  experi- 
ence accumulates  daily ;  and,  therefore,  that  "  progress  of 
the  species,"  in  all  senses,  is  an  obvious  and  necessary  fact. 
There  is  something  which  is  true  in  this  view,  mixed  with 
a  great  deal  which  is  false.  Material  knowledge,  the  phys- 
ical and  mechanical  sciences,  make  their  way  from  step  to 
step,  from  experiment  to  experiment,  and  each  advance  is 
secured  and  made  good,  and  cannot  again  be  lost.  One 
generation  takes  up  the  general  sum  of  experience  where 
the  last  laid  it  down,  adds  to  it  what  it  has  the  opportunity 
of  adding,  and  leaves  it  with  interest  to  the  next.  The 
successive  positions,  as  they  are  gained,  require  nothing  for 
the  apprehension  of  them  but  an  understanding  ordinarily 
cultivated.  Prejudices  have  to  be  encountered,  but  prej- 
udices of  opinion  merely,  not  prejudices  of  conscience  or 
prejudices  of  self-love,  like  those  which  beset  our  progress 
in  the  science  of  morality.  But  in  morals  we  enter  upon 
conditions  wholly  different  —  conditions  in  which  age  dif- 
fers from  age,  man  differs  from  man,  and  even  from  him- 
self, at  different  moments.  We  all  have  experienced  times 
when,  as  we  say,  we  should  not  know  ourselves  ;  some, 
when  we  fall  below  our  average  level ;  soire,  when  we  are 


The  Book  of  Job.  265 

lifted  above,  and  put  on,  as  it  were,  a  higher  nature.  At 
such  intervals  as  these  last  (unfortunately,  with  most  of  us 
of  rare  occurrence),  many  things  become  clear  to  us  which 
before  were  hard  sayings ;  propositions  become  alive  which, 
usually,  are  but  dry  words ;  our  hearts  seem  purer,  our 
motives  loftier ;  our  purposes,  what  we  are  proud  to  ac- 
knowledge to  ourselves. 

And,  as  man  is  unequal  to  himself,  so  is  man  to  his 
neighbor,  and  period  to  period.  The  entire  method  of  ac- 
tion, the  theories  of  human  life  which  in  one  era  prevail 
universally,  to  the  next  are  unpractical  and  insane,  as  those 
of  this  next  would  have  seemed  mere  baseness  to  the  first, 
if  the  first  could  have  anticipated  them.  One  epoch,  we 
may  suppose,  holds  some  "  greatest  nobleness  principle," 
the  other  some  "  greatest  happiness  principle ;  "  and  then 
their  very  systems  of  axioms  will  contradict  one  another ; 
their  general  conceptions  and  their  detailed  interpretations, 
their  rules,  judgments,  opinions,  practices,  will  be  in  per- 
petual and  endless  collision.  Our  minds  take  shape  from 
our  hearts,  and  the  facts  of  moral  experience  do  not  teach 
their  own  meaning,  but  submit  to  many  readings  according 
to  the  power  of  the  eye  which  we  bring  with  us. 

The  want  of  a  clear  perception  of  so  important  a  feature 
about  us  leads  to  many  singular  contradictions.  A  believer 
in  popular  Protestantism,  who  is  also  a  believer  in  progress, 
ought,  if  he  were  consistent,  to  regard  mankind  as  growing 
every  day  towards  a  more  and  more  advantageous  position 
with  respect  to  the  trials  of  life ;  and  yet  if  he  were  asked 
whether  it  was  easier  for  him  to  "save  his  soul"  in  the 
nineteenth  century  than  it  would  have  been  in  the  first  or 
second,  or  whether  the  said  soul  was  necessarily  better 
worth  saving,  he  would  be  perplexed  for  an  answer.  There 
is  hardly  one  of  us  who,  in  childhood,  has  not  felt  like  the 
Jews  to  whom  Christ  spoke,  that  if  he  had  "  lived  in  the 
days  of  the  Fathers,"  if  he  had  had  their  advantages,  he 
would  have  found  duty  a  much  easier  matter;  and  some  of 


266  The  Book  of  Job. 

us  in  mature  life  have  felt  that,  in  old  Athens,  or  old  re* 
publican  Rome,  in  the  first  ages  of  Christianity,  in  the 
Crusades,  or  at  the  Reformation,  there  was  a  contagious 
atmosphere  of  heroism,  in  which  we  should  have  been  less 
troubled  with  the  little  feelings  which  cling  about  us  now. 
At  any  rate,  it  is  at  these  rare  epochs  only  that  real  addi- 
tions are  made  to  our  moral  knowledge.  At  such  times 
new  truths  are,  indeed,  sent  down  among  us,  and,  for  periods 
longer  or  shorter,  may  be  seen  to  exercise  an  elevating 
influence  on  mankind.  Perhaps  what  is  gained  on  these 
occasions  is  never  entirely  lost.  The  historical  monuments 
of  their  effects  are  at  least  indestructible ;  and  when  the 
spirit  which  gave  them  birth  reappears,  their  dormant 
energy  awakens  again. 

But  it  seems  from  our  present  experience  of  what,  in 
some  at  least  of  its  modern  forms,  Christianity  has  been 
capable  of  becoming,  that  there  is  no  doctrine  in  itself  so 
pure,  but  what  the  meaner  nature  which  is  in  us  can  disarm 
and  distort  it,  and  adapt  it  to  its  own  littleness.  The  once 
living  spirit  dries  up  into  formula?,  and  formulae,  whether 
of  mass-sacrifice  or  vicarious  righteousness,  or  "  reward 
and  punishment,"  are  contrived  ever  so  as  to  escape  mak- 
ing over-high  demands  upon  the  conscience.  Some  aim  at 
dispensing  with  obedience  altogether,  and  those  which  in- 
sist on  obedience  rest  the  obligations  of  it  on  the  poorest 
of  motives.  So  things  go  on  till  there  is  no  life  left  at  all ; 
till,  from  all  higher  aspirations,  we  are  lowered  down  to  the 
love  of  self  after  an  enlightened  manner ;  and  then  nothing 
remains  but  to  fight  the  battle  over  again.  The  once  bene- 
ficial truth  has  become,  as  in  Job's  case,  a  cruel  and  mis- 
chievous deception,  and  the  whole  question  of  life  and  its 
obligations  must  again  be  opened. 

It  is  now  some  three  centuries  since  the  last  of  such  re- 
openings.  If  we  ask  ourselves  how  much  during  this  time 
has  been  actually  added  to  the  sum  of  our  knowledge  in 
these  matters ;  what,  in  all  the  thousands  upon  thousands 


The  Book  of  Job.  267 

of  sermons,  and  theologies,  and  philosophies  with  which 
Europe  has  been  deluged,  has  been  gained  for  mankind 
beyond  what  we  have  found  in  this  Book  of  Job,  how  far 
all  this  has  advanced  us  in  the  "  progress  of  humanity,"  it 
were  hard,  or  rather  it  is  easy,  to  answer.  How  far  we 
have  fallen  below,  let  Paley  and  the  rest  bear  witness. 
But  what  moral  question  can  be  asked  which  admits  now 
of  a  grander  solution  than  was  offered  two,  perhaps  three, 
thousand  years  ago?  The  world  has  not  been  standing 
still ;  experience  of  man  and  life  has  increased ;  questions 
have  multiplied  on  questions,  while  the  answers  of  the 
established  teachers  to  them  have  been  growing  every  day 
more  and  more  incredible.  What  other  answers  have  there 
been  ?  Of  all  the  countless  books  which  have  appeared, 
there  has  been  only  one  of  enduring  importance,  in  which 
an  attempt  is  made  to  carry  on  the  solution  of  the  great 
problem.  Job  is  given  over  into  Satan's  hand  to  be 
tempted ;  and  though  he  shakes,  he  does  not  fall.  Taking 
the  temptation  of  Job  for  his  model,  Goethe  has  similarly 
exposed  his  Faust  to  trial,  and  with  him  the  tempter  suc- 
ceeds. His  hero  falls  from  sin  to  sin,  from  crime  to  crime  ; 
he  becomes  a  seducer,  a  murderer,  a  betrayer,  following 
recklessly  his  evil  angel  wherever  he  chooses  to  lead  him ; 
and  yet,  with  all  this,  he  never  wholly  forfeits  our  sympathy. 
In  spite  of  his  weakness,  his  heart  is  still  true  to  his  higher 
nature  ;  sick  and  restless,  even  in  the  delirium  of  enjoy- 
ment he  always  longs  for  something  better,  and  he  never 
can  be  brought  to  say  of  evil  that  it  is  good.  And  there- 
fore, after  all,  the  devil  is  balked  of  his  prey  ;  in  virtue  of 
this  one  fact,  that  the  evil  in  which  he  steeped  himself  re- 
mained to  the  last  hateful  to  him,  Faust  is  saved  by  the 
angels.  .  .  It  will  be  eagerly  answered  for  the  established 
belief,  that  such  cases  are  its  especial  province.  All  men 
are  sinners,  and  it  possesses  the  blessed  remedy  for  sin. 
But,  among  the  countless  numbers  of  those  characters  so 
strangely  mixed  among  us,  in  which  the  dark  and  the  bright 


268  The  Book  of  Job. 

fibres  cross  like  a  mesh-work ;  characters  at  one  moment 
capable  of  acts  of  heroic  greatness,  at  another  hurried  by 
temptation  into  actions  which  even  common  men  may  de- 
plore, how  many  are  there  who  have  never  availed  them- 
selves of  the  conditions  of  reconciliation  as  orthodoxy 
proffers  them,  and  of  such  men  what  is  to  be  said  ?  It  was 
said  once  of  a  sinner  that  to  her  "  much  was  forgiven,  for 
she  loved  much."  But  this  is  language  which  theology  has 
as  little  appropriated  as  the  Jews  could  appropriate  the  lan- 
guage of  Job.  It  cannot  recognize  the  power  of  the  human 
heart.  It  has  no  balance  in  which  to  weigh  the  good  against 
the  evil ;  and  when  a  great  Burns  or  a  Mirabeau  comes 
before  it,  it  can  but  tremblingly  count  up  the  offenses  com- 
mitted, and  then,  looking  to  the  end,  and  rinding  its  own 
terms  not  to  have  been  complied  with,  it  faintly  mutters  its 
anathema.  Sin  only  it  can  apprehend  and  judge ;  and  for 
the  poor  acts  of  struggling  heroism,  "  Forasmuch  as  they 
were  not  done,"  &c.,  &c.,  it  doubts  not  but  they  have  the 
nature  of  sin.1 

Something  of  the  difficulty  has  been  met  by  Goethe,  but 
it  cannot  be  said  that  he  has  resolved  it ;  or  at  least  that 
he  has  furnished  others  with  a  solution  which  may  guide 
their  judgment.  In  the  writer  of  the  Book  of  Job  there 
is  an  awful  moral  earnestness  before  which  we  bend  as  in 
the  presence  of  a  superior  being.  The  orthodoxy  against 
which  he  contended  is  not  set  aside  or  denied;  he  sees 
what  truth  is  in  it ;  only  he  sees  more  than  it,  and  over  it, 
and  through  it.  But  in  Goethe,  who  needed  it  more,  inas- 
much as  his  problem  was  more  delicate  and  difficult,  the 
moral  earnestness  is  not  awful,  is  not  even  high.  "We  can- 
not feel  that  in  dealing  with  sin  he  entertains  any  great 
horror  of  it ;  he  looks  on  it  as  a  mistake,  as  undesirable, 
but  scarcely  as  more.  Goethe's  great  powers  are  of  an- 
other kind ;  and  this  particular  question,  though  in  appear- 
ance the  primary  subject  of  the  poem,  is  really  only  sec- 
i  See  the  Thirteenth  Article. 


The  Book  of  Job.  269 

ondary.  In  substance,  Faust  is  more  like  Ecclesiastes 
than  it  is  like  Job,  and  describes  rather  the  restlessness  of 
a  largely  gifted  nature  which,  missing  the  guidance  of  the 
heart,  plays  experiments  with  life,  trying  knowledge,  pleas- 
ure, dissipation,  one  after  another,  and  hating  them  all; 
and  then  hating  life  itself  as  a  weary,  stale,  flat,  unprofit- 
able mockery.  The  temper,  exhibited  here  will  probably 
be  perennial  in  the  world.  But  the  remedy  for  it  will 
scarcely  be  more  clear  under  other  circumstances  than  it 
is  at  present,  and  lies  in  the  disposition  of  the  emotions,  . 
and  not  in  any  proposition  which'  can  be  addressed  to  the 
understanding. 

For  that  other  question,  —  how  rightly  to  estimate  a  hu- 
man being ;  what  constitutes  a  real  vitiation  of  character, 
and  how  to  distinguish,  without  either  denying  the  good  or 
making  light  of  the  evil ;  how  to  be  just  to  the  popular 
theories,  and  yet  not  to  blind  ourselves  to  their  shallowness 
and  injustice,  —  that  is  a  problem  for  us,  for  the  solution 
of  which  we  are  at  present  left  to  our  ordinary  instinct, 
without  any  recognized  guidance  whatsoever. 

Nor  is  this  the  only  problem  which  is  in  the  same  situa- 
tion. There  can  scarcely  be  a  more  startling  contrast  be- 
tween fact  and  theory  than  the  conditions  under  which, 
practically,  positions  of  power  and  influence  are  distributed 
among  us,  —  between  the  theory  of  human  worth  which 
the  necessities  of  life  oblige  us  to  act  upon,  and  the  theory 
which  we  believe  that  we  believe.  As  we  look  around 
among  our  leading  men,  our  statesmen,  our  legislators,  the 
judges  on  our  bench,  the  commanders  of  our  armies,  the 
men  to  whom  this  English  nation  commits  the  conduct  of 
its  best  interests,  profane  and  sacred,  what  do  we  see  to  be 
the  principles  which  guide  our  selection  ?  How  entirely  dv> 
they  lie  beside  and  beyond  the  negative  tests!  and  how 
little  respect  do  we  pay  to  the  breach  of  this  or  that  com- 
mandment in  comparison  with  ability  !  So  wholly  impos- 
Bible  is  it  to  apply  the  received  opinions  on  such  matters  to 


270  T/ie  Book  of  Job. 

practice,  —  to  treat  men  known  to  be  guilty  of  what  the- 
ology calls  deadly  sins,  as  really  guilty  of  them,  that  it 
would  almost  seem  we  had  fallen  into  a  moral  anarchy; 
that  ability  alone  is  what  we  regard,  without  any  reference 
at  all,  except  in  glaring  and  outrageous  cases,  to  moral  dis- 
qualifications. It  is  invidious  to  mention  names  of  living 
men  ;  it  is  worse  than  invidious  to  drag  out  of  their  graves 
men  who  have  gone  down  into  them  with  honor,  to  make  a 
point  for  an  argument.  But  we  know,  all  of  us,  that  among 
the  best  servants  of  our  country  there  have  been,  and  there 
are,  many  whose  lives  will  not  stand  scrutiny  by  the  nega- 
tive tests,  and  who  do  not  appear  very  greatly  to  repent, 
or  to  have  repented,  of  their  sins  according  to  recognized 
methods. 

Once  more :  among  our  daily  or  weekly  confessions, 
which  we  are  supposed  to  repeat  as  if  we  were  all  of  us  at 
all  times  in  precisely  the  same  moral  condition,  we  are 
made  to  say  that  we  have  done  those  things  which  we 
ought  not  to  have  done,  and  to  have  left  undone  those 
things  which  we  ought  to  have  done.  An  earthly  father  to 
whom  his  children  were  day  after  day  to  make  this  ac- 
knowledgment would  be  apt  to  inquire  whether  they  were 
trying  to  do  better  —  whether,  at  any  rate,  they  were  en- 
deavoring to  learn  ;  and  if  he  were  told  that  although  they 
had  made  some  faint  attempts  to  understand  the  negative 
part  of  their  duty,  yet  that  of  the  positive  part,  of  those 
things  which  they  ought  to  do,  they  had  no  notions  at  all, 
and  had  no  idea  that  they  were  under  obligation  to  form 
any,  he  would  come  to  rather  strange  conclusions  about 
them.  But,  really  and  truly,  what  practical  notions  of 
duty  have  we  beyond  that  of  abstaining  from  committing 
sins  ?  Not  to  commit  sin,  we  suppose,  covers  but  a  small 
part  of  what  is  expected  of  us.  Through  the  entire  tissue 
of  our  employments  there  runs  a  good  and  a  bad.  Bishop 
Butler  tells  us,  for  instance,  that  even  of  our  time  there 
is  a  portion  which  is  ours,  and  a  portion  which  is  our 


The  Book  of  Job.  271 

neighbor's  ;  and  if  we  spend  more  of  it  on  personal  inter- 
ests than  our  own  share,  we  are  stealing.  This  sounds 
strange  doctrine  ;  we  prefer  making  vague  acknowledg- 
ments, and  shrink  from  pursuing  them  into  detail.  We  say 
vaguely,  that  in  all  \ve  do  we  should  consecrate  ourselves  to 
God,  and  our  own  lips  condemn  us ;  for  who  among  us 
cares  to  learn  the  way  to  do  it  ?  The  devoir  of  a  knight 
was  understood  in  the  courts  of  chivalry;  the  lives  of 
heroic  men,  Pagan  and  Christian,  were  once  held  up  before 
the  world  as  patterns  of  detailed  imitation  ;  and  now,  when 
such  ideals  are  wanted  more  than  ever,  Protestantism  stands 
with  a  drawn  sword  on  the  threshold  of  the  inquiry,  and 
tells  us  that  it  is  impious.  The  law,  we  are  told,  has  been 
fulfilled  for  us  in  condescension  to  our  inherent  worthless- 
ness,  and  our  business  is  to  appropriate  another's  righteous- 
ness, and  not,  like  Titans,  to  be  scaling  heaven  by  profane 
efforts  of  our  own.  Protestants,  we  know  very  well,  will 
cry  out  in  tones  loud  enough  at  such  a  representation  of 
their  doctrines.  But  we  know  also  that  unless  men  may 
feel  a  cheerful  conviction  that  they  can  do  right  if  they  try, 
—  that  they  can  purify  themselves,  can  live  noble  and 
worthy  lives,  —  unless  this  is  set  before  them  as  the  thing 
which  they  are  to  do,  and  can  succeed  in  doing,  they  will 
not  waste  their  energies  on  what  they  know  beforehand  will 
end  in  failure ;  and  if  they  may  not  live  for  God,  they  will 
live  for  themselves. 

And  all  this  while  the  whole  complex  frame  of  society  is 
a  mesh-work  of  duty  woven  of  living  fibre,  and  the  condi- 
tion of  its  remaining  sound  is,  that  every  thread  of  it,  of  its 
own  free  energy,  shall  do  what  it  ought.  The  penalties  of 
duties  neglected  are  to  the  full  as  terrible  as  those  of  sins 
committed ;  more  terrible,  perhaps,  because  more  palpable 
and  sure.  A  lord  of  the  land,  or  an  employer  of  labor, 
supposes  that  he  has  no  duty  except  to  keep  what  he  calls 
the  commandments  in  his  own  person,  to  go  to  church,  and 
to  do  what  he  will  with  his  own,  —  and  Irish  famines  fol- 


272  The  Book  of  Job. 

low,  and  trade  strikes,  and  chartisms,  and  Paris  revolutions. 
We  look  for  a  remedy  in  impossible  legislative  enactments, 
and  there  is  but  one  remedy  which  will  avail  —  that  the 
thing  which  we  call  public  opinion  leai'n  something  of  the 
meaning  of  human  obligation,  and  demand  some  approxi- 
mation to  it.  As  things  are,  we  have  no  idea  of  what  a 
human  being  ought  to  be.  After  the  first  rudimental  con- 
ditions, we  pass  at  once  into  meaningless  generalities ;  and 
with  no  knowledge  to  guide  our  judgment,  we  allow  it  to 
be  guided  by  meaner  principles ;  we  respect  money,  we 
respect  rank,  we  respect  ability  —  character  is  as  if  it  had 
no  existence. 

In  the  midst  of  this  loud  talk  of  progress,  therefore,  in 
which  so  many  of  us  at  present  are  agreed  to  believe,  which 
is,  indeed,  the  common  meeting  point  of  all  the  thousand 
sects  into  which  we  are  split,  it  is  with  saddened  feelings 
that  we  see  so  little  of  it  in  so  large  a  matter.  Progress 
there  is  in  knowledge ;  and  science  has  enabled  the  number 
of  human  beings  capable  of  existing  upon  this  earth  to  be 
indefinitely  multiplied.  But  this  is  but  a  small  triumph  if 
the  ratio  of  the  good  and  bad,  the  wise  and  the  foolish,  the 
full  and  the  hungry,  remains  unaffected.  And  we  cheat 
ourselves  with  words  when  we  conclude  out  of  our  material 
splendor  an  advance  of  the  race. 

In  two  things  there  is  progress  —  progress  in  knowledge 
of  the  outward  world,  and  progress  in  material  wealth. 
This  last,  for  the  present,  creates,  perhaps,  more  evils  than 
it  relieves ;  but  suppose  this  difficulty  solved  —  suppose  the 
wealth  distributed,  and  every  peasant  living  like  a  peer  — 
what  then  ?  If  this  is  all,  one  noble  soul  outweighs  the 
whole  of  it.  Let  us  follow  knowledge  to  the  outer  circle 
of  the  universe  —  the  eye  will  not  be  satisfied  with  seeing, 
nor  the  ear  with  hearing.  Let  us  build  our  streets  of  gold, 
and  they  will  hide  as  many  aching  hearts  as  hovels  of  straw. 
The  well-being  of  mankind  is  not  advanced  a  single  step. 
"Knowledge  is  power,  and  wealth  is  power ;  and  harnessed, 


The  Book  of  Job.  273 

as  in  Plato's  fable,  to  the  chariot  of  the  soul,  and  guided 
by  wisdom,  they  may  bear  it  through  the  circle  of  the  stars ; 
but  left  to  their  own  guidance,  or  reined  by  a  fool's  hand, 
the  wild  horses  may  bring  the  poor  fool  to  Phaeton's  end, 
and  set  a  world  on  fire* 


SPINOZA.' 


Benedicti  de  Spinoza  Tractatus  de  Deo  et  Homine  ejusque 
Felicitate  Lineamenta.  Atque  Annotationes  ad  Tractatum 
Theologico-Politicum.  Edidit  et  illustravit  EDWARDTJS  BOEH- 
MER.  Halae  ad  Salain.  J.  F.  Lippert.  1852. 

THIS  little  volume  is  one  evidence  among  many  of  the 
interest  which  continues  to  be  felt  by  the  German  stu- 
dents in  Spinoza.  The  actual  merit  of  the  book  itself  is 
little  or  nothing;  but  it  shows  the  industry  with  which 
they  are  gleaning  among  the  libraries  of  Holland  for  any 
traces  of  him  which  they  can  recover ;  and  the  smallest 
fragments  of  his  writings  are  acquiring  that  factitious  im- 
portance which  attaches  to  the  most  insignificant  relics 
of  acknowledged  greatness.  Such  industry  cannot  be 
otherwise  than  laudable,  but  we  do  not  think  it  at  present 
altogether  wisely  directed.  Nothing  is  likely  to  be  brought 
to  light  which  will  further  illustrate  Spinoza's  philosophy. 
He  himself  spent  the  better  part  of  his  life  in  clearing  his 
language  of  ambiguities ;  and  such  earlier  sketches  of  his 
system  as  are  supposed  still  to  be  extant  in  MS.,  and  a 
specimen  of  which  M.  Boehmer  believes  himself  to  have 
discovered,  contribute  only  obscurity  to  what  is  in  no  need 
of  additional  difficulty.  Of  Spinoza's  private  history,  on  the 
contrary,  rich  as  it  must  have  been,  and  abundant  traces 
of  it  as  must  be  extant  somewhere  in  his  own  and  his 
friends'  correspondence,  we  know  only  enough  to  feel  how 
vast  a  chasm  remains  to  be  filled.  It  is  not  often  that  any 
1  Westminster  Review,  1854, 


Spinoza.  275 

man  in  this  world  lives  a  life  so  well  worth  writing  as 
Spinoza  lived;  not  for  striking  incidents  or  large  events 
connected  with  it,  but  because  (and  no  sympathy  with  his 
peculiar  opinions  disposes  us  to  exaggerate  his  merit)  he 
was  one  of  the  very  best  men  whom  these  modern  times 
have  seen.  Excommunicated,  disinherited,  and  thrown 
upon  the  world  when  a  mere  boy  to  seek  his  livelihood,  he 
resisted  the  inducements  which  on  all  sides  were  urged 
upon  him  to  come  forward  in  the  world.  He  refused 
pensions,  legacies,  money  in  many  forms ;  he  maintained 
himself  with  grinding  glasses  for  optical  instruments,  an 
art  which  he  had  been  taught  in  early  life,  and  in  which  he 
excelled  the  best  workmen  in  Holland ;  and  when  he  died, 
which  was  at  the  early  age  of  forty-four,  the  affection  with 
which  he  was  regarded  showed  itself  singularly  in  the  in- 
dorsement of  a  tradesman's  bill  which  was  sent  in  to  his 
executors,  in  which  he  was  described  as  M.  Spinoza  of 
"  blessed  memory." 

The  account  which  remains  of  him  we  owe,  not  to  an 
admiring  disciple,  but  to  a  clergyman  to  whom  his  theories 
were  detestable ;  and  his  biographer  allows  that  the  most 
malignant  scrutiny  had  failed  to  detect  a  blemish  in  his 
character  —  that,  except  so  far  as  his  opinions  were  blam- 
able,  he  had  lived  to  outward  appearance  free  from  fault. 
We  desire,  in  what  we  are  going  to  say  of  him,  to  avoid 
offensive  collision  with  popular  prejudices ;  still  less  shall 
we  place  ourselves  in  antagonism  with  the  earnest  convic- 
tions of  serious  persons :  our  business  is  to  relate  what 
Spinoza  was,  and  leave  others  to  form  their  own  conclu- 
sions. But  one  lesson  there  does  seem  to  lie  in  such  a  life 
of  such  a  man,  —  a  lesson  which  he  taught  equally  by  ex- 
ample and  in  word,  —  that  wherever  there  is  genuine  and 
thorough  love  for  good  and  goodness,  no  speculative  super- 
structure of  opinion  can  be  so  extravagant  as  to  forfeit 
those  graces  which  are  promised,  not  to  clearness  ot  intel- 
lect, but  to  purity  of  heart.  In  Spinoza's  own  beautiful 


276  Spinoza. 

language,  —  "  Justitia  et  caritas  unicum  et  certissimum  vera 
fidei  Catholicae  signum  est,  et  veri  Spiritus  Sancti  fructus : 
et  ubicumque  haec  reperiuntur,  ibi  Christus  re  vera  est,  et 
ubicumque  hsec  desunt  deest  Christus :  solo  namaue  Christi 
Spiritu  duel  possumus  in  amorem  justitiae  et  caritatis."  We 
may  deny  his  conclusions ;  we  may  consider  his  system  of 
thought  preposterous  and  even  pernicious ;  but  we  cannot 
refuse  him  the  respect  which  is  the  right  of  all  sincere  and 
honorable  men.  Wherever  and  on  whatever  questions  good 
men  are  found  ranged  on  opposite  sides,  one  of  three  alter- 
natives is  always  true :  either  the  points  of  disagreement 
are  purely  speculative  and  of  no  moral  importance;  or 
there  is  a  misunderstanding  of  language,  and  the  same 
thing  is  meant  under  a  difference  of  words ;  or  else  the 
real  truth  is  something  different  from  what  is  held  by  any 
of  the  disputants,  and  each  is  representing  some  important 
element  which  the  others  ignore  or  forget.  In  either  case, 
a  certain  calmness  and  good  temper  is  necessary,  if  we 
would  understand  what  we  disagree  with,  or  would  oppose 
it  with  success ;  Spinoza's  influence  over  European  thought 
is  too  great  to  be  denied  or  set  aside  ;  and  if  his  doctrines 
be  false  in  part,  or  false  altogether,  we  cannot  do  their 
work  more  surely  than  by  calumny  or  misrepresentation  — 
a  most  obvious  truism,  which  no  one  now  living  will  deny 
in  words,  and  which  a  century  or  two  hence  perhaps  will 
begin  to  produce  some  effect  upon  the  popular  judgment 

Bearing  it  in  mind,  then,  ourselves,  as  far  as  we  are  able, 
we  propose  to  examine  the  Pantheistic  philosophy  in  the 
first  and  only  logical  form  which  as  yet  it  has  assumed. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  case  with  Spinoza's  disciples, 
in  the  author  of  this  system  there  was  no  unwillingness  to 
look  closely  at  it,  or  to  follow  it  out  to  its  conclusions  ;  and 
whatever  other  merits  or  demerits  belong  to  him,  at  least 
he  has  done  as  much  as  with  language  can  be  done  to 
make  himself  thoroughly  understood. 

And  yet,  both  in  friend  and  enemy  alike,  there  has  been 


Spinoza.  277 

a  reluctance  to  see  Spinoza  as  he  really  was.  The  Herder 
and  Schleiermacher  school  have  claimed  him  as  a  Chris- 
tian —  a  position  which  no  little  disguise  was  necessary  to 
make  tenable ;  the  orthodox  Protestants  and  Catholics 
have  called  him  an  Atheist  —  which  is  still  more  extrava- 
gant ;  and  even  a  man  like  Novalis,  who,  it  might  have  been 
expected,  would  have  had  something  reasonable  to  say,  could 
find  no  better  name  for  him  than  a  Gott  trunkner  Mann 
—  a  God-intoxicated  man :  an  expression  which  has  been 
quoted  by  every  body  who  has  since  written  upon  the  sub- 
ject, and  which  is  about  as  inapplicable  as  those  laboriously 
pregnant  sayings  usually  are.  With  due  allowance  for 
exaggeration,  such  a  name  would  describe  tolerably  the 
Transcendental  mystics,  a  Toler,  a  Boehmen,  or  a  Sweden- 
borg ;  but  with  what  justice  can  it  be  applied  to  the  cau- 
tious, methodical  Spinoza,  who  carried  his  thoughts  about 
with  him  for  twenty  years,  deliberately  shaping  them,  and 
who  gave  them  at  last  to  the  world  in  a  form  more  severe 
than  with  such  subjects  had  ever  been  so  much  as  at- 
tempted before  ?  With  him,  as  with  all  great  men,  there 
was  no  effort  after  sublime  emotions.  He  was  a  plain, 
practical  person  ;  his  object  in  philosophy  was  only  to  find 
a  rule  by  which  to  govern  his  own  actions  and  his  own 
judgment ;  and  his  treatises  contain  no  more  than  the  con- 
clusions at  which  he  arrived  in  this  purely  personal  search, 
with  the  grounds  on  which  he  rested  them. 

We  cannot  do  better  than  follow  his  own  account  of  him- 
self, as  he  has  given  it  in  the  opening  of  his  unfinished 
Tract,  "  De  Emendatione  Intellectus."  His  language  is 
very  beautiful,  but  it  is  elaborate  and  full;  and,  as  we 
have  a  long  journey  before  us,  we  must  be  content  to  epito- 
mize it. 

Looking  round  him  on  his  entrance  into  life,  and  asking 
himself  what  was  his  place  and  business  there,  he  turned 
for  examples  to  his  fellow-men,  and  found  little  that  he 
could  venture  to  imitate.  He  observed  them  all  in  their 


278  Spinoza,. 

several  ways  governing  themselves  by  their  different  no- 
tions of  what  they  thought  desirable  ;  while  these  notions 
themselves  were  resting  on  no  more  secure  foundation  than 
a  vague,  inconsistent  experience  :  the  experience  of  one 
was  not  the  experience  of  another,  and  thus  men  were  all, 
so  to  say,  rather  playing  experiments  with  life  than  living, 
and  the  larger  portion  of  them  miserably  failing.  Their 
mistakes  arose,  as  it  seemed  to  Spinoza,  from  inadeqiiate 
knowledge  ;  things  which  at  one  time  looked  desirable, 
disappointed  expectation  when  obtained,  and  the  wiser 
course  concealed  itself  often  under  an  uninviting  exterior. 
He  desired  to  substitute  certainty  for  conjecture,  and  to 
endeavor  to  find,  by  some  surer  method,  where  the  real 
good  of  man  actually  lay.  We  must  remember  that  he 
had  been  brought  up  a  Jew,  and  had  been  driven  out  of 
the  Jews'  communion ;  his  mind  was  therefore  in  contact 
with  the  bare  facts  of  life,  with  no  creed  or  system  lying 
between  them  and  himself  as  the  interpreter  of  experience. 
He  was  thrown  on  his  own  resources  to  find  his  way  for 
himself,  and  the  question  was,  how  to  find  it.  Of  all  forms 
of  human  thought,  one  only,  he  reflected,  would  admit 
of  the  certainty  which  he  required.  If  certain  knowledge 
were  attainable  at  all,  it  must  be  looked  for  under  the 
mathematical  or  demonstrative  method ;  by  tracing  from 
ideas  clearly  conceived  the  consequences  which  were  for- 
mally involved  in  them.  What,  then,  were  these  ideas  — 
these  verce  idece,  as  he  calls  them  —  and  how  were  they  to 
be  obtained  ?  If  they  were  to  serve  as  the  axioms  of  his 
system,  they  must  be  self-evident  truths,  of  which  no  proof 
was  required ;  and  the  illustration  which  he  gives  of  the 
character  of  such  ideas  is  ingenious  and  Platonic. 

In  order  to  produce  any  mechanical  instrument,  Spinoza 
says,  we  require  others  with  which  to  manufacture  it ;  and 
others  again  to  manufacture  those;  and  it  would  seem 
thus  as  if  the  process  must  be  an  infinite  one,  and  as  if 
nothing  could  ever  be  made  at  all.  Nature,  however,  has 


279 

provided  for  the  difficulty  in  creating  of  her  own  accord 
certain  rude  instruments,  with  the  help  of  which  we  can 
make  others  better;  and  others  again  with  the  help  of 
those.  And  so  he  thinks  it  must  be  with  the  mind  ;  there 
must  be  somewhere  similar  original  instruments  provided 
also  as  the  first  outfit  of  intellectual  enterprise.  To  dis- 
cover these,  he  examines  the  various  senses  in  which  men 
are  said  to  know  any  thing,  and  he  finds  that  they  resolve 
themselves  into  three,  or,  as  he  elsewhere  divides  it,  four. 
"We  know  a  thing  — 

i.  Ex  mero  auditu :  because  we  have  heard  it  from 
some  person  or  persons  whose  veracity  we  have  no 
reason  to  question. 

ii.  Ab  experientid  vagd, :  from  general  experience : 
for   instance,  all  facts  or  phenomena  which  come  to 
us   through   our   senses    as   phenomena,  but   of  the 
.  causes  of  which  we  are  ignorant. 

2.  We  know  a  thing  as  we  have  correctly  conceived  the 
laws  of  its  phenomena,  and  see  them  following  in  their  ^j- 
quence  in  the  order  of  Nature. 

3.  Finally,  we  know  a  thing,  ex  scientid  intuitivd,  which 
alone  is  absolutely  clear  and  certain. 

To  illustrate  these  divisions,  suppose  it  be  required  to 
find  a  fourth  proportional  which  shall  stand  to  the  third  of 
three  numbers  as  the  second  does  to  the  'first.  The  mer- 
chant's clerk  knows  his  rule ;  he  multiplies  the  second  into 
the  third  and  divides  by  the  first.  He  neither  knows  nor 
cares  to  know  why  the  result  is  the  number  which  he  seeks, 
but  he  has  learnt  the  fact  that  it  is  so,  and  he  remem- 
bers it. 

A  person  a  little  wiser  has  tried  the  experiment  in  a  va- 
riety of  simple  cases  ;  he  has  discovered  the  rule  by  induc- 
tion, but  still  does  not  understand  k. 

A  third  has  mastered  the  laws  of  proportion  mathemat- 
ically, as  he  has  found  them  in  Euclid  or  other  geometrical 
tteatise. 


280  Spinoza. 

A  fourth,  with  the  plain  numbers  of  1,  2,  and  3,  sees  for 
himself  by  simple  intuitive  force  that  1 :  2=3  :  6. 

Of  these  several  kinds  of  knowledge  the  third  and  fourth 
alone  deserve  to  be  called  knowledge,  the  others  being  no 
more  than  opinions  more  or  less  justly  founded.  The  last 
is  the  only  real  insight,  although  the  third,  being  exact  in 
its  form,  may  be  depended  upon  as  a  basis  of  certainty. 
Under  this  last,  as  Spinoza  allows,  nothing  except  the  very 
simplest  truths,  non  nisi  simplicissimce  veritates,  can  be  per- 
ceived ;  but,  such  as  they  are,  they  are  the  foundation  of  all 
after-science  ;  and  the  true  ideas,  the  verce  idece,  which  are 
apprehended  by  this  faculty  of  intuition,  are  the  primitive 
instruments  with  which  Nature  has  furnished  us.  If  we 
ask  for  a  test  by  which  to  distinguish  them,  he  has  none  to 
give  us.  "  Veritas,"  he  says  to  his  friends,  in  answer  to 
their  question,  "  veritas  index  sui  est  et  falsi.  Veritas  se 
ipsam  patefacit."  All  original  truths  are  of  such  a  kind  that 
they  cannot  without  absurdity  even  be  conceived  to  be  false  > 
the  opposites  of  them  are  contradictions  in  terms.  "lit 
sciam  me  scire,  necessarib  debeo  prius  scire.  Hinc  patet 
quod  certitude  nihil  est  prseter  ipsam  essentiam  objecti- 
vam.  .  .  .  Cum  itaque  veritas  nullo  egeat  signo,  sed  suffi- 
ciat  habere  essentiam  rerum  objectivam,  aut  quod  idem  est 
ideas,  ut  omne  tollatur  dubium ;  hinc  sequitur  quod  vera 
non  est  methodus,  signum  veritatis  quaerere  post  acquisi- 
tionem  idearum ;  sed  quod  vera  methodus  est  via,  ut  ipsa 
veritas,  aut  essentiad  objectivae  rerum,  aut  idese  (omnia  ilia 
idem  significant)  debito  ordine  quaeranttlr."  (De  Etnend. 
Intel!.) 

Spinoza  will  scarcely  carry  with  him  the  reasoner  of  the 
nineteenth  century  in  arguments  like  these.  When  we 
remember  the  thousand  conflicting  opinions,  the  truth  of 
which  their  several  advocates  have  as  little  doubted  as 
they  have  doubted  their  own  existence,  we  require  some 
better  evidence  than  a  mere  feeling  of  certainty ;  and  Aris- 
totle's less  pretending  canon  promises  a  safer  road.  "O 


Spinoza.  281 


Soxet,  "  what  all  men  think,"  says  Aristotle,  TOVTO  elv 
<f>d[ji,ev  "  this  we  say  is"  —  "  and  if  you  will  not  have  this  to 
be  a  fair  ground  of  conviction,  you  will  scarcely  find  one 
which  will  serve  you  better."  We  are  to  see,  however, 
what  these  idea  are  which  are  offered  to  us  as  self-evident. 
Of  course,  if  they  are  self-evident,  if  they  do  produce  con- 
viction, nothing  more  is  to  be  said  ;  but  it  does,  indeed, 
appear  strange  to  us  that  Spinoza  was  not  staggered  as  to 
the  validity  of  his  canon,  when  his  friends,  every  one  of 
them,  so  floundered  and  stumbled  among  what  he  regarded 
as  his  simplest  propositions  ;  when  he  found  them,  in  spite 
of  all  that  he  could  say,  requiring  endless  signa  veritatis, 
and  unable  for  a  long  time  even  to  understand  their  mean- 
ing, far  less  to  "  recognize  them  as  elementary  certainties." 
Modern  readers  may,  perhaps,  be  more  fortunate.  We 
produce  at  length  the  definitions  and  axioms  of  the  first 
book  of  the  "  Ethica,"  and  they  may  judge  for  them- 
selves :  — 

DEFINITIONS. 

1.  By  a  tiling  which  is  causa  sui,  its  own  cause,  I  mean  a  thing 
the  essence  of  which  involves  the  existence  of  it,  or  a  thing  which 
cannot  be  conceived  except  as  existing. 

2.  I  call  a  thing  finite,  suo  genere,  when  it  can  be  limited  by 
another  (or  others)  of  the  same  nature  —  e.  g.  a  given  body  is 
called  finite,  because  we  can  always  conceive  another  body  en- 
veloping it  ;  but  body  is  not  limited  by  thought,  nor  thought  by 
body. 

3.  By  substance  I  mean  what  exists  in  itself  and  is  conceived 
by  itself;  the  conception  of  which,  that  is,  does  not  involve  the 
conception  of  any  thing  else  as  the  cause  of  it. 

4.  By  attribute  I  mean  whatever  the  intellect  perceives  of  sub- 
stance as  constituting  the  essence  of  substance. 

5.  Mode  is  an  affection  of  substance,  or  is  that  which  is  in 
something  else,  by  and  through  which  it  is  conceived. 

6.  God  is  a  being  absolutely  infinite  ;  a  substance  consisting  of 
infinite  attributes,  each  of  which  expresses  his  eternal  and  infinite 
essence. 


282  Spinoza. 


EXPLANATION. 

I  say  absolutely  infinite,  not  infinite  suo  genere  —  for  of  what  is 
infinite  suo  genere  only,  the  attributes  are  not  infinite  but  finite  ; 
whereas  what  is  infinite  absolutely  contains  in  its  own  essence 
every  thing  by  which  substance  can  be  expressed,  and  which 
involves  no  impossibility. 

DEFINITIONS. 

7.  That  thing  is  "  free  "  which  exists  by  the  sole  necessity  of 
its  own  nature,  and  is  determined  in  its  operation  by  itself  only. 
That  is  "  not  free  "  which  is  called  into  existence  by  something 
else,  and  is  determined  in  its  operation  according  to  a  fixed  and 
definite  method. 

8.  Eternity  is  existence  itself,  conceived  as  following  necessa- 
rily and  solely  from  the  definition  of  the  thing  which  is  eternal. 

EXPLANATION. 

Because  existence  of  this  kind  is  conceived  as  an  eternal  verity, 
and,  therefore,  cannot  be  explained  by  duration,  even  though  the 
duration  be  without  beginning  or  end. 

So  far  the  definitions  ;  then  follow  the 

AXIOMS. 

1.  All  things  that  exist,  exist  either  of  themselves  or  in  virtue 
of  something  else. 

2.  What  we  cannot  conceive  of  as  existing  in  virtue  of  some- 
thing else,  we  must  conceive  through  and  in  itself. 

3.  From  a  given  cause   an  effect  necessarily  follows,  and  if 
there  be  no  given  cause  no  effect  can  follow. 

4.  Things  which  have  nothing  in  common  with  each  other  can- 
not be  understood  through  one  another  —  i.  e.  the  conception  of 
one  does  not  involve  the  conception  of  the  other. 

5.  To  understand  an  effect  implies  that  we   understand  the 
cause  of  it. 

6.  A  true  idea  is  one  which  corresponds  with  its  ideate. 

7.  The  essence  of  any  thing  which  can  be  conceived  as  non- 
existent does  not  involve  existence. 

Such   is  our   metaphysical  outfit  of  simple  ideas  with 


Spinoza.  283 

which  to  start  upon  our  enterprise  of  learning.  The  larger 
number  of  them,  so  far  from  being  simple,  must  be  abso- 
lutely without  meaning  to  persons  whose  minds  are  undis- 
ciplined in  metaphysical  abstraction;  they  become  only 
intelligible  propositions  as  we  look  back  upon  them  with 
the  light  of  the  system  which  they  are  supposed  to  contain. 

Although,  however,  we  may  justly  quarrel  with  such 
xmlooked-for  difficulties,  the  important  question,  after  all, 
is  not  of  the  obscurity  of  these  axioms,  but  of  their  truth. 
Many  things  in  all  the  sciences  are  obscure  to  an  unprac- 
ticed  understanding,  which  are  true  enough  and  clear 
enough  to  people  acquainted  with  the  subjects,  and  they 
may  be  fairly  made  the  foundations  of  a  scientific  system, 
although  rudimentary  students  must  be  contented  to  accept 
them  upon  faith.  Of  course,  also,  it  is  entirely  competent 
to  Spinoza,  or  to  any  one,  to  define  the  terms  which  he 
intends  to  use  just  as  he  pleases,  provided  it  be  understood 
that  any  conclusions  which  he  derives  out  of  them  apply 
only  to  the  ideas  so  defined,  and  not  to  any  supposed 
object  existing  which  corresponds  with  them.  Euclid 
defines  his  triangles  and  circles,  and  discovers  that  to 
figures  so  described  certain  properties  previously  unknown 
may  be  proved  to  belong.  But  as  in  Nature  there  are  no 
such  things  as  triangles  and  circles  exactly  answering  the 
definition,  his  conclusions,  as  applied  to  actually  existing 
objects,  are  either  not  true  at  all  or  only  proximately  so. 
Whether  it  be  possible  to  bridge  over  the  gulf  between 
existing  things  and  the  abstract  conception  of  them,  as 
Spinoza  attempts  to  do,  we  shall  presently  see.  It  is  a 
royal  road  to  certainty  if  it  be  a  practicable  one ;  but  we 
cannot  say  that  we  ever  met  any  one  who  could  say  hon- 
estly Spinoza's  reasonings  had  convinced  him  ;  and  power 
of  demonstration,  like  alt  other  powers,  can  be  judged 
anly  by  its  eifects.  Does  it  prove  ?  does  it  produce  con- 
viction ?  If  not,  it  is  nothing. 

We  need  not  detain  our  readers  among  these  abstrac- 


284  Spinoza. 

tions.  The  power  of  Spinozism  does  not  lie  so  remote 
from  ordinary  appreciation,  or  we  should  long  ago  have 
heard  the  last  of  it.  Like  all  other  systems  which  have 
attracted  followers,  it  addresses  itself,  not  to  the  logical 
intellect,  but  to  the  imagination,  which  it  affects  to  set 
aside.  We  refuse  to  'submit  to  the  demonstrations  by 
which  it  thrusts  itself  upon  our  reception ;  but  regarding 
it  as  a  whole,  as  an  attempt  to  explain  the  nature  of  the 
world  of  which  we  are  a  part,  we  can  still  ask  ourselves 
how  far  the  attempt  is  successful.  Some  account  of  these 
things  we  know  that  there  must  be,  and  the  curiosity 
which  asks  the  question  regards  itself,  of  course,  as  com- 
petent in  some  degree  to  judge  of  the  answer  to  it. 

Before  proceeding,  however,  to  regard  this  philosophy 
in  the  aspect  in  which  it  is  really  powerful,  we  must  clear 
our  way  through  the  fallacy  of  the  method. 

The  system  is  evolved  in  a  series  of  theorems  in  se- 
verely demonstrative  order  out  of  the  definitions  and  axi- 
oms which  we  have  translated.  To  propositions  1-6  we 
have  nothing  to  object ;  they  will  not,  probably,  convey 
any  very  clear  ideas,  but  they  are  so  far  purely  abstract,  and 
seem  to  follow  (as  far  as  we  can  speak  of  "  following  "  in 
such  subjects)  by  fair  reasoning.  "  Substance  is  prior  in 
Nature  to  its  affections."  "  Substances  with  different  at- 
tributes have  nothing  in  common,"  and,  therefore,  "  one 
cannot  be  the  cause  of  the  other."  "  Things  really  dis- 
tinct are  distinguished  by  difference  either  of  attribute 
or  mode  (there  being  nothing  else  by  which  they  can  be 
distinguished),  and,  therefore,  because  things  modally  dis- 
tinguished do  not  qua  substance  differ  from  one  another, 
there  cannot  be  more  than  one  substance  of  the  same 
attribute.  Therefore  (let  us  remind  our  readers  that  we 
are  among  what  Spinoza  calls  notiones  simplicissimas), 
since  there  cannot  be  two  substances  of  the  same  attribute, 
and  substances  of  different  attributes  cannot  be  the  cause 
one  of  the  other,  it  follows  that  no  substance  can  be  pro- 
duced by  another  substance." 


Spinoza.  285 

The  existence  of  substance,  he  then  concludes,  is  in* 
volved  in  the  nature  of  the  thing  itself.  Substance  exists. 
It  does  and  must.  "We  ask,  why  ?  and  we  are  answered, 
because  there  is  nothing  capable  of  producing  it,  and  there- 
fore it  is  self-caused  —  i.  e.  by  the  first  definition  the 
essence  of  it  implies  existence  as  part  of  the  idea.  It  is 
astonishing  that  Spinoza  should  not  have  seen  that  he 
assumes  the  fact  that  substance  does  exist  in  order  to  prove 
that  it  must.  If  it  cannot  be  produced  and  exists,  then, 
of  course,  it  exists  in  virtue  of  its  own  nature.  But  sup- 
posing it  does  not  exist,  supposing  it  is  all  a  delusion,  the 
proof  falls  to  pieces.  We  have  to  fall  back  on  the  facts  of 
experience,  on  the  obscure  and  unscientific  certainty  that 
the  thing  which  we  call  the  world,  and  the  personalities 
which  we  call  ourselves,  are  a  real  substantial  something, 
before  we  find  ground  of  any  kind  to  stand  upon.  Con- 
scious of  the  infirmity  of  his  demonstration,  Spinoza  winds 
round  it  and  round  it,  adding  proof  to  proof,  but  never 
escaping  the  same  vicious  circle  :  substance  exists  because 
it  exists,  and  the  ultimate  experience  of  existence,  so  far 
from  being  of  that  clear  kind  which  can  be  accepted  as  an 
axiom,  is  the  most  confused  of  all  our  sensations.  What  is 
existence  ?  and  what  is  that  something  which  we  say 
exists?  Things  —  essences  —  existences!  these  are  but 
the  vague  names  with  which  faculties,  constructed  only  to 
deal  with  conditional  phenomena,  disguise  their  incapacity. 
The  world  in  the  Hindoo  legend  was  supported  upon  the 
back  of  the  tortoise. .  It  was  a  step  between  the  world  and 
nothingness,  and  served  to  cheat  the  imagination  with 
ideas  of  a  fictitious  resting-place. 

If  any  one  affirms  (says  Spinoza)  that  he  has  a  clear,  distinct 
—  that  is  to  say,  a  true  —  idea  of  substance,  but  that  nevertheless 
he  is  uncertain  whether  any  such  substance  exist,  it  is  the  same  as 
if  he  were  to  affirm  that  he  had  a  true  idea,  but  yet  was  uncertain 
whether  it  was  not  false.  Or  if  he  says  that  substance  can  be  cre- 
ated, it  is  like  saying  that  a  false  idea  can  become  a  true  idea  — 


286  Spinoza. 

as  absurd  a  thing  as  it  is  possible  to  conceive ;  and  therefore  the 
existence  of  substance,  as  well  as  the  essence  of  it,  must  be  ac- 
knowledged as  an  eternal  verity. 

It  is  again  the  same  story.  Spinoza  speaks  of  a  clear 
idea  of  substance  ;  but  lie  has  not  proved  that  such  an  idea 
is  within  the  compass  of  the  mind.  A  man's  own  notion 
that  he  sees  clearly,  is  no  proof  that  he  really  sees  clearly  ; 
and  the  distinctness  of  a  definition  in  itself  is  no  evidence 
that  it  corresponds  adequately  with  the  object  of  it.  No 
doubt  a  man  who  professes  to  have  an  idea  of  substance  as 
an  existing  thing,  cannot  doubt,  as  long  as  he  has  it,  that 
substance  so  exists.  This  is  merely  to  say  that  as  long  as 
a  man  is  certain  of  this  or  that  fact,  he  has  no  doubt  of  it. 
But  neither  his  certainty  nor  Spinoza's  will  be  of  any  use 
to  a  man  who  has  no  such  idea,  and  who  cannot  recognize 
the  lawfulness  of  the  method  by  which  it  is  arrived  at. 

From  the  self-existing  substance  it  is  a  short  step  to  the 
existence  of  God.  After  a  few  more  propositions,  follow- 
ing one  another  with  the  same  kind  of  coherence,  we  arrive 

O  * 

successively  at  the  conclusion  that  there  is  but  one  sub- 
stance ;  that  this  substance  being  necessarily  existent,  it  is 
also  infinite  ;  that  it  is  therefore  identical  with  the  Being 
who  had  been  previously  defined  as  the  "  Ens  absolute 
perfectum." 

Demonstrations  of  this  kind  were  the  characteristics  of 
the  period.  Descartes  had  set  the  example  of  construct- 
ing them,  and  was  followed  by  Cudworth,  Clarke,  Berkeley, 
and  many  others  besides  Spinoza.  The  inconclusiveness 
of  the  method  may  perhaps  be  observed  most  readily  in 
the  strangely  opposite  conceptions  formed  by  all  these 
writers  of  the  nature  of  that  Being  whose  existence  they 
nevertheless  agreed,  by  the  same  process,  to  gather  each 
out  of  their  ideas.  It  is  important,  however,  to  examine  it 
carefully,  for  it  is  the  very  key-stone  of  the  Pantheistic 
system. 

As  stated  by  Descartes,  the  argument  stands  something 


Spinoza.  287 

as  follows  :  —  God  is  an  all-perfect  Being,  —  perfection  is 
the  idea  which  we  form  of  Him :  existence  is  a  mode  of 
perfection,  and  therefore  God  exists.  The  sophism  we  are 
told  is  only  apparent.  Existence  is  part  of  the  idea  —  as 
much  involved  in  it  as  the  equality  of  all  lines  drawn  from 
the  centre  to  the  circumference  of  a  circle  is  involved  in 
the  idea  of  a  circle.  A  non-existent  all-perfect  Being  is 
as  inconceivable  as  a  quadrilateral  triangle. 

It  is  sometimes  answered  that  in  this  way  we  may  prove 
the  existence  of  any  thing  —  Titans,  Chimaeras,  or  the 
Olympian  gods ;  we  have  but  to  define  them  as  existing, 
and  the  proof  is  complete.  But,  this  objection  summarily 
set  aside ;  none  of  these  beings  are  by  hypothesis  abso- 
lutely perfect,  and,  therefore,  of  their  existence  we  can 
conclude  nothing.  With  greater  justice,  however,  we  may 
say,  that  of  such  terms  as  perfection  and  existence  we  know 
too  little  to  speculate.  Existence  may  be  an  imperfection 
for  all  we  can  tell ;  we  know  nothing  about  the  matter. 
Such  arguments  are  but  endless  petiliones  principii  —  like 
the  self-devouring  serpent,  resolving  themselves  into  noth- 
ing. We  wander  round  and  round  them,  in  the  hope  of 
finding  some  tangible  point  at  which  we  can  seize  their 
meaning ;  but  we  are  presented  everywhere  with  the  same 
impracticable  surface,  from  which  our  grasp  glides  off  inef- 
fectual. 

Spinoza  himself,  however,  obviously  felt  an  intense  con- 
viction of  the  validity  of  his  argument.  His  opinion  is 
stated  with  sufficient  distinctness  in  one  of  his  letters. 
"  Nothing  is  more  clear,"  he  writes  to  his  pupil  De  Vries, 
"  than  that,  on  the  one  hand,  every  thing  which  exists  is 
conceived  by  or  under  some  attribute  or  other ;  that  the 
more  reality,  therefore,  a  being  or  thing  has,  the  more  at- 
tributes must  be  assigned  to  it ;  "  "  and  conversely  "  (and 
this  he  calls  his  argumentum  palmarium  in  proof  of  the  ex- 
istence of  God),  "  the  more  attributes  I  assign  to  a  thing,  the 
more  I  am  forced  to  conceive  it  as  existing."  Arrange  the 


288  Spinoza. 

argument  how  we  please,  we  shall  never  get  it  into  a  form 
clearer  than  this :  —  The  more  perfect  a  thing  is,  the  more 
it  must  exist  (as  if  existence  could  admit  of  more  or  less)  ; 
and  therefore  the  all-perfect  Being  must  exist  absolutely. 
There  is  no  flaw,  we  are  told,  in  the  reasoning ;  and  if  we 
are  not  convinced,  it  is  from  the  confused  habits  of  our  own 
minds. 

Some  persons  may  think  that  all  arguments  are  good 
when  on  the  right  side,  and  that  it  is  a  gratuitous  imperti- 
nence to  quarrel  with  the  proofs  of  a  conclusion  which  it  is 
so  desirable  that  all  should  receive.  As  yet,  however,  we 
are  but  inadequately  acquainted  with  the  idea  attached  by 
Spinoza  to  the  word  "  perfection  ;  "  and  if  we  commit  our- 
selves to  his  logic,  it  may  lead  us  out  to  unexpected  conse- 
quences. All  such  reasonings  presume,  as  a  first  condi- 
tion, that  we  men  possess  faculties  capable  of  dealing  with 
absolute  ideas ;  that  we  can  understand  the  nature  of 
things  external  to  ourselves  as  they  really  are  in  their  ab- 
solute relation  to  one  another,  independent  of  our  own  con- 
ception. The  question  immediately  before  us  is  one  which 
can  never  be  determined.  The  truth  which  is  to  be  proved 
is  one  which  we  already  believe ;  and  if,  as  we  believe  also, 
our  conviction  of  God's  existence  is,  like  that  of  our  own 
existence,  intuitive  and  immediate,  the  grounds  of  it  can 
never  adequately  be  analyzed;  we  cannot  say  exactly  what 
they  are,  and  therefore  we  cannot  say  what  they  are  not 
Whatever  we  receive  intuitively,  we  receive  without  proof; 
and,  stated  as  a  naked  proposition,  it  must  involve  a  petitio 
principii.  We  have  a  right,  however,  to  object  at  once  to 
an  argument  in  which  the  conclusion  is  more  obvious 
than  the  premises ;  and  if  it  lead  on  to  other  consequences 
which  we  disapprove  in  themselves,  we  reject  it  without 
difficulty  or  hesitation.  We  ourselves  believe  that  God  is, 
because  we  experience  the  control  of  a  "  power  "  which  is 
stronger  than  we ;  and  our  instincts  teach  us  so  much  of 
the  nature  of  that  power  as  our  own  relation  to  it  requires 


Spinoza.  289 

us  to  know.  God  is  the  being  to  whom  our  obedience  is 
due  ;  and  the  perfections  which  we  attribute  to  Him  are 
those  moral  perfections  which  are  the  proper  object  of  our 
reverence.  Strange  to  say,  the  perfections  of  Spinoza, 
which  appear  so  clear  to  him,  are  without  any  moral  char- 
acter whatever ;  and  for  men  to  speak  of  the  justice  of 
God,  he  tells  us,  is  but  to  see  in  Him  a  reflection  of  them- 
selves ;  as  if  a  triangle  were  to  conceive  of  Him  as  eminen- 
ter  triangularis,  or  a  circle  to  give  Him  the  property  of 
circularity. 

Having  arrived  at  existence,  we  next  find  ourselves 
among  ideas,  which  at  least  are  intelligible,  if  the  charac- 
ter of  them  is  as  far  removed  as  before  from  the  circle  of 
ordinary  thought.  Nothing  exists  .except  substance,  the 
attributes  under  which  substance  is  expressed,  and  the 
modes  or  affections  of  those  attributes.  There  is  but  one 
substance  self-existent,  eternal,  necessary,  and  that  is  the 
absolutely  Infinite  all-perfect  Being.  Substance  cannot 
produce  substance,  and  therefore  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
creation  ;  and  every  thing  which  exists  is  either  an  attri- 
bute of  God,  or  an  affection  of  some  attribute  of  Him, 
modified  in  this  manner  or  in  that.  Beyond  Him  there  is 
nothing,  and  nothing  like  Him  or  equal  to  Him ;  He  there- 
fore alone  in  himself  is  absolutely  free,  uninfluenced  by 
any  thing,  for  nothing  is  except  himself ;  and  from  Him 
and  from  his  supreme  power,  essence,  intelligence  (for 
these  words  mean  the  same  thing),  all  things  have  neces- 
sarily flowed,  and  will  and  must  flow  forever,  in  the  same 
manner  as  from  the  nature  of  a  triangle  it  follows,  and  has 
followed,  and  will  follow  from  eternity  to  eternity,  that  the 
angles  of  it  are  equal  to  two  right  angles.  It  would  seem 
as  if  the  analogy  were  but  an  artificial  play  upon  words, 
and  that  it  was  only  metaphorically  that  in  mathematical 
demonstration  we  speak  of  one  thing  as  following  from 
another.  The  properties  of  a  curve  or  a  triangle  are  what 
they  are  at  all  times,  and  the  sequence  is  merely  in  tho 

19 


290  Spinoza. 

order  in  which  they  are  successively  known  to  ourselves. 
But  according  to  Spinoza,  this  is  the  only  true  sequence ; 
and  what  we  call  the  universe,  and  all  the  series  of  inci- 
dents in  earth  or  planet,  are  involved  formally  and  mathe- 
matically in  the  definition  of  God. 

Each  attribute  is  infinite  suo  genere ;  and  it  is  time  that 
we  should  know  distinctly  the  meaning  which  Spinoza  at- 
taches to  that  important  word.  Out  of  the  infinite  number 
of  the  attributes  of  God,  two  only,  he  says,  are  known  to 
us  —  "  extension,"  and  "  thought,"  or  "  mind."  Duration, 
even  though  it  be  without  beginning  or  end,  is  not  an  attri- 
bute ;  it  is  not  even  a  real  thing.  Time  has  no  relation  to 
Being,  conceived  mathematically ;  it  would  be  absurd  to 
speak  of  circles  or  triangles  as  any  older  to-day  than  they 
were  at  the  beginning  of  the  world.  These  and  every 
thing  of  the  same  kind  are  conceived,  as  Spinoza  rightly 
says,  sub  quadam  specie  ceternitatis.  But  extension,  or  sub- 
stance extended,  and  thought,  or  substance  perceiving,  are 
real,  absolute,  and  objective.  We  must  not  confound  ex- 
tension with  body ;  for  though  body  be  a  mode  of  exten- 
sion, there  is  extension  which  is  not  body,  and  it  is  infinite 
because  we  cannot  conceive  it  to  be  limited  except  by  itself 
—  or,  in  other  words,  to  be  limited  at  all.  And  as  it  is 
with  extension,  so  it  is  with  mind,  which  is  also  infinite  with 
the  infinity  of  its  object.  Thus  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
creation,  and  no  beginning  or  end.  All  things  of  which 
our  faculties  are  cognizant  under  one  or  other  of  these  at- 
tributes are  produced  from  God,  and  in  Him  they  have  their 
being,  and  without  Him  they  would  cease  to  be. 

Proceeding  by  steps  of  rigid  demonstration  (and  most 
admirably  indeed  is  the  form  of  the  philosophy  adapted  to 
the  spirit  of  it),  we  learn  that  God  is  the  only  causa  libera  ; 
that  no  other  thing  or  being  has  any  power  of  self-deter- 
mination ;  all  moves  by  fixed  laws  of  causation,  motive 
upon  motive,  act  upon  act ;  there  is  no  free  will,  and  no 
contingency  ;  and  however  necessary  it  may  be  for  our  in- 


Spinoza.  291 

capacity  to  consider  future  things  as  in  a  sense  contingent 
(see  Tractat.  Theol.  Polit.  cap.  iv.,  sec.  4),  this  is  but  one  of 
the  thousand  convenient  deceptions  which  we  are  obliged 
to  employ  with  ourselves.  God  is  the  causa  immanens  om- 
nium ;  He  is  not  a  personal  being  existing  apart  from  the 
universe  ;  but  himself  in  his  own  reality,  He  is  expressed 
in  the  universe,  which  is  his  living  garment.  Keeping  to 
the  philosophical  language  of  the  time,  Spinoza  preserves 
the  distinction  between  natura  naturans  and  natura  natu- 
rata.  The  first  is  being  in  itself,  the  attributes  of  substance 
as  they  are  conceived  simply  and  alone  ;  the  second  is  the 
infinite  series  of  modifications  which  follow  out  of  the  prop- 
erties of  these  attributes.  And  thus  all  which  is,  is  what  it 
is  by  an  absolute  necessity,  and  could  not  have  been  other 
than  it  is.  God  is  free,  because  no  causes  external  to  him- 
self have  power  over  Him  ;  and  as  good  men  are  most  free 
when  most  a  law  to  themselves,  so  it  is  no  infringement  on 
God's  freedom  to  say  that  He  must  have  acted  as  He  has 
acted,  but  rather  He  is  absolutely  free  because  absolutely  a 
law  himself  to  himself. 

Here  ends  the  first  book  of  Spinoza's  Ethics  —  the  book 
which  contains,  as  we  said,  the  notiones  simplicissimas,  and 
the  primary  and  rudimental  deductions  from  them.  His 
Dei  naturam,  he  says,  in  his  lofty  confidence,  ejusque  pro- 
prieties explicui.  But,  as  if  conscious  that  his  method 
will  never  convince,  he  concludes  this  portion  of  his  sub- 
ject with  an  analytical  appendix  ;  not  to  explain  or  apolo- 
gize, but  to  show  us  clearly,  in  practical  detail,  the  position 
into  which  he  has  led  us.  The  root,  we  are  told,  of  all  phi- 
losophical errors  lies  in  our  notion  of  final  causes ;  we 
invert  the  order  of  Nature,  and  interpret  God's  action 
through  our  own  ;  we  speak  of  his  intentions,  as  if  He  were 
a  man  ;  we  assume  that  we  are  capable  of  measuring  them, 
and  finally  erect  ourselves,  and  our  own  interests,  into  the 
centre  and  criterion  of  all  things.  Hence  arises  our  notion 
of  evil.  If  the  universe  be  what  this  philosophy  has  de- 


292  Spinoza. 

scribed  it,  the  perfection  which  it  assigns  to  God  is  extended 
to  every  thing,  and  evil  is  of  course  impossible ;  there  is 
no  short-coming  either  in  Nature  or  in  man ;  each  person 
and  each  thing  is  exactly  what  it  has  the  power  to  be,  and 
nothing  more.  But  men  imagining  that  all  things  exist  on 
their  account,  and  perceiving  their  own  interests,  bodily 
and  spiritual,  capable  of  being  variously  affected,  have  con- 
ceived these  opposite  influences  to  result  from  opposite  and 
contradictory  powers,  and  call  what  contributes  to  their 
advantage  good,  and  whatever  obstructs  it,  evil.  For  our 
convenience  we  form  generic  conceptions  of  human  excel- 
lence, as  archetypes  after  which  to  strive  ;  and  such  of  us 
as  approach  nearest  to  such  archetypes  are  supposed  to  be 
virtuous,  and  those  who  are  most  remote  from  them  to  be 
wicked.  But  such  generic  abstractions  are  but  entia  imag- 
inatiom's,  and  have  no  real  existence.  In  the  eyes  of  God 
each  thing  is  what  it  has  the  means  of  being.  There  is  no 
rebellion  against  him,  and  no  resistance  of  his  will ;  in 
truth,  therefore,  there  neither  is  nor  can  be  such  a  thing  as 
a  bad  action  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word.  Actions 
are  good  or  bad,  not  in  themselves,  but  as  compared  with 
the  nature  of  the  agent :  wrhat  we  censure  in  men,  we  tolerate 
and  even  admire  in  animals  ;  and  as  soon  as  we  are  aware 
of  our  mistake  in  assigning  to  man  a  power  of  free  volition, 
our  notion  of  evil  as  a  positive  thing  will  cease  to  exist. 

If  I  am  asked  (concludes  Spinoza)  why  then  all  mankind  were 
not  created  by  God,  so  as  to  be  governed  solely  by  reason  ?  it  was 
because,  I  reply,  there  was  to  God  no  lack  of  matter  to  create  all 
things  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  grade  of  perfection ;  or,  to 
speak  more  properly,  because  the  laws  of  God's  nature  were  am- 
ple enough  to  suffice  for  the  production  of  all  things  which  can  be 
conceived  by  an  Infinite  Intelligence. 

It  is  possible  that  readers  who  have  followed  us  so  far 
will  now  turn  away  from  a  philosophy  which  issues  in  such 
conclusions  ;  resentful,  perhaps,  that  it  should  have  been 
ever  laid  before  them  at  all,  in  language  so  little  expressive 


Spinoza.  293 

of  aversion  and  displeasure.  We  must  claim,  however,  in 
Spinoza's  name,  the  right  which  he  claims  for  himself.  His 
system  must  be  judged  as  a  whole  ;  and  whatever  we  may 
think  ourselves  would  be  the  moral  effect  of  such  doctrines 
if  they  were  generally  received,  in  his  hands  and  in  his 
heart  they  are  Avorkecl  into  maxims  of  the  purest  and  lof- 
tiest morality.  And  at  least  Ave  are  bound  to  remember 
that  some  account  of  this  great  mystery  of  evil  there  must 
be ;  and  although  familiarity  with  commonly  received  ex 
planations  may  disguise  from  us  the  difficulties  with  which 
they  too,  as  well  as  that  of  Spinoza,  are  embarrassed,  such 
difficulties  none  the  less  exist.  The  fact  is  the  grand  per- 
plexity, and  for  ourselves  we  acknowledge  that  of  all  theo- 
ries about  it  Spinoza's  would  appear  to  us  the  least  irra- 
tional, setting  conscience,  and  the  voice  of  conscience, 
aside.  The  objections,  with  the  replies  to  them,  are  well 
drawn  out  in  the  correspondence  with  William  de  Blyen- 
burg.  It  will  be  seen  at  once  with  how  little  justice  the 
denial  of  evil  as  a  positive  thing  can  be  called  equivalent 
to  denying  it  relatively  to  man,  or  to  confusing  the  moral 
distinctions  between  virtue  and  vice. 

We  speak  (writes  Spinoza,  in  answer  to  Blyenburg,  who  had 
urged  something  of  the  kind)  —  we  speak  of  this  or  that  man  hav- 
ing done  a  wrong  thing,  when  we  compare  him  with  a  general 
standard  of  humanity ;  but  inasmuch  as  God  neither  perceives 
things  in  such  abstract  manner,  nor  forms  to  himself  such  generic 
definitions,  and  since  there  is  no  more  reality  in  any  thing  than 
God  has  assigned  to  it,  it  follows,  surely,  that  the  absence-of  good 
exists  only  in  respect  of  man's  understanding,  not  in  respect  of 
God's. 

If  this  be  so,  then  (replies  Blyenburg),  bad  men  fulfill  God's 
will  as  well  as  good. 

It  is  true  (Spinoza  answers)  they  fulfill  it,  yet  not  as  the  good, 
nor  as  well  as  the  good,  nor  are  they  to  be  compared  with  them. 
The  better  a  thing  or  a  person  be,  the  more  there  is  in  him  of 
God's  spirit,  and  the  more  he  expresses  God's  will ;  while  the  bad, 
being  without  that  divine  love  which  arises  from  the  knowledge  of 


Spinoza. 

God,  and  through  which  alone  we  are  called  (in  respect  of  our 
understandings)  his  servants,  are  but  as  instruments  in  the  hand 
of  the  artificer  —  they  serve  unconsciously,  and  are  consumed  in 
their  service. 

Spinoza,  after  all,  is  but  stating  ia  philosophical  language 
the  extreme  doctrine  of  Grace ;  and  St.  Paul,  if  we  inter- 
pret his  real  belief  by  the  one  passage  so  often  quoted,  in 
which  he  compares  us  to  '•  clay  in  the  hands  of  the  potter, 
who  maketh  one  vessel  to  honor  and  another  to  dishonor," 
may  be  accused  with  justice  of  having  held  the  same  opin- 
ion. If  Calvinism  be  pressed  to  its  logical  consequences, 
it  either  becomes  an  intolerable  falsehood,  or  it  resolves  it- 
self into  the  philosophy  of  Spinoza.  It  is  monstrous  to 
call  evil  a  positive  thing,  and  to  assert,  in  the  same  breath, 
that  God  has  predetermined  it,  —  to  tell  us  that  He  has  or- 
dained what  He  hates,  and  hates  what  He  has  ordained.  It 
is  incredible  that  we  should  be  without  power  to  obey  Him 
except  through  his  free  grace,  and  yet  be  held  responsible 
for  our  failures  when  that  grace  has  been  withheld.  And 
it  is  idle  to  call  a  philosopher  sacrilegious  who  has  but  sys- 
tematized the  faith  which  so  many  believe,  and  cleared  it 
of  its  most  hideous  features. 

Spinoza  flinches  from  nothing,  and  disguises  no  conclu- 
sions either  from  himself  or  from  his  readers.  "We  believe 
for  ourselves  that  logic  has  no  business  with  such  ques- 
tions ;  that  the  answer  to  them  lies  in  the  conscience  and 
not  in  the  intellect.  Spinoza  thinks  otherwise  ;  and  he  is 
at  least  true  to  the  guide  which  he  has  chosen.  Blyen- 
burg  presses  him  with  instances  of  monstrous  crime,  such 
as  bring  home  to  the  heart  the  natural  horror  of  it.  He 
speaks  of  Nero's  murder  of  Agrippina,  and  asks  if  God  can 
be  called  the  cause  of  such  an  act  as  that. 

God  (replies  Spinoza  calmly)  is  the  cause  of  all  things  which 
nave  reality.  If  you  can  show  that  evil,  errors,  crimes  express 
any  real  things,  I  agree  readily  that  God  is  the  cause  of  them ; 
but  1  conceive  myself  to  have  proved  that  what  constitutes  the 


iSpinoza.  295 

essence  of  evil  is  not  a  real  thing  at  all,  and  therefore  that  God 
cannot  be  the  cause  of  it.  Nero's  matricide  was  not  a  crime,  in  so 
far  as  it  was  a  positive  outward  act.  Orestes  also  killed  his  mother ; 
and  we  do  not  judge  Orestes  as  we  judge  Nero.  The  crime  of  the 
latter  lay  in  his  being  without  pity,  without  obedience,  without  nat- 
ural affection  —  none  of  which  things  express  any  positive  essence, 
but  the  absence  of  it ;  and  therefore  God  was  not  the  cause  of 
these,  although  he  was  the  cause  of  the  act  and  the  intention. 

But  once  for  all  (he  adds),  this  aspect  of  things  will  remain  in- 
.olerable  and  unintelligible  as  long  as  the  common  notions  of  free- 
will remain  unremoved. 

And  of  course,  and  we  shall  all  confess  it,  if  these  no- 
tions are  as  false  as  Spinoza  supposes  them  — if  we  have 
no  power  to  be  any  thing  but  what  we  are,  there  neither  is 
nor  can  be  such  a  thing  as  moral  evil ;  and  what  we  call 
crimes  will  no  more  involve  a  violation  of  the  will  of  God, 
they  will  no  more  impair  his  moral  attributes  if  we  suppose 
him  to  have  willed  them,  than  the  same  actions,  whether 
of  lust,  ferocity,  or  cruelty,  in  the  inferior  animals.  There 
will  be  but,  as  Spinoza  says,  an  infinite  gradation  in  created 
things,  the  poorest  life  being  more  than  none,  the  meanest 
active  disposition  something  better  than  inertia,  and  the 
smallest  exercise  of  reason  better  than  mere  ferocity.  "  The 
Lord  has  made  all  things  for  himself,  even  the  wicked  for 
the  day  of  evil." 

The  moral  aspect  of  the  matter  will  be  more  clear  as  we 
proceed.  "We  pause,  however,  to  notice  one  difficulty  of  a 
metaphysical  kind,  which  is  best  disposed  of  in  passing. 
Whatever  obscurity  may  lie  about  the  thing  which  we  call 
Time  (philosophers  not  being  able  to  agree  what  it  is,  or 
whether  properly  it  is  any  thing),  the  words  past,  present, 
future,  do  undoubtedly  convey  some  definite  idea  with 
them:  things  will  be  which  are  not  yet,  and  have  been 
which  are  no  longer.  Now,  if  every  thing  which  exists  be 
a  necessary  mathematical  consequence  from  the  nature  or 
definition  of  the  One  Being,  we  cannot  see  how  there  can 
be  any  lime  but  the  present,  or  how  past  and  future  have 


296  Spinoza. 

room  for  a  meaning.  God  is,  and  therefore  all  propeities 
of  him  are,  just  as  every  property  of  a  circle  exists  in  it  as 
soon  as  the  circle  exists.  We  may  if  we  like,  for  conven- 
ience, throw  our  theorems  into  the  future,  and  say,  e.  g 
that  if  two  lines  in  a  circle  cut  each  other,  the  rectangle 
under  the  parts  of  the  one  will  equal  that  under  the  parts 
of  the  other.  But  we  only  mean  in  reality  that  these 
rectangles  are  equal ;  and  the  future  relates  only  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  fact.  Allowing,  however,  as  much  as  we 
please,  that  the  condition  of  England  a  hundred  years 
hence  lies  already  in  embryo  in  existing  causes,  it  is  a  par- 
adox to  say  that  such  condition  exists  already  in  the  sense 
in  which  the  properties  of  the  circle  exist ;  and  yet  Spi- 
noza insists  on  the  illustration. 

It  is  singular  that  he  should  not  have  noticed  the  diffi- 
culty ;  not  that  either  it  or  the  answer  to  it  (which  no 
doubt  would  have  been  ready  enough)  are  likely  to  inter- 
est any  person  except  metaphysicians,  a  class  of  thinkers, 
happily,  which  is  rapidly  diminishing. 

We  proceed  to  more  important  matters  —  to  Spinoza's 
detailed  theory  of  Nature  as  exhibited  in  man  and  in  man's 
mind.  His  theory  for  its  bold  ingenuity  is  by  far  the  most 
remarkable  which  on  this  dark  subject  has  ever  been  pro- 
posed. Whether  we  can  believe  it  or  not,  is  another  ques- 
tion ;  yet  undoubtedly  it  provides  a  solution  for  every  diffi- 
culty ;  it  accepts  with  equal  welcome  the  extremes  of 
materialism  and  of  spiritualism  ;  and  if  it  be  the  test  of 
the  soundness  of  a  philosophy  that  it  will  explain  phenom- 
ena and  reconcile  contradictions,  it  is  hard  to  account  for 
the  fact  that  a  system  which  bears  such  a  test  so  admira- 
bly, should  nevertheless  be  so  incredible  as  it  is. 

Most  people  have  heard  of  the  "  Harmonic  Pre-etablie  *' 
of  Leibnitz  ;  it  is  borrowed  without  acknowledgment  from 
Spinoza,  and  adapted  to  the  Leibnitzian  philosophy. 
"  Man,"  says  Leibnitz,  "  is  composed  of  mind  and  body  ; 
but  what  is  mind  and  what  is  body,  and  what  is  the  nature 


Spinoza.  297 

of  their  union  ?  Substances  so  opposite  in  kind  cannot 
affect  one  another  ;  mind  cannot  act  on  matter,  or  matter 
upon  mind  ;  and  the  appearance  of  their  reciprocal  opera- 
tion is  an  appearance  only  and  a  delusion."  A  delusion  so 
general,  however,  required  to  be  accounted  for ;  and  Leib- 
nitz accounted  for  it  by  supposing  that  God,  in  creating  a 
world  composed  of  material  and  spiritual  phenomena,  or- 
dained that  these  several  phenomena  should  proceed  from 
the  beginning  in  parallel  lines  side  by  side  in  a  constantly 
corresponding  harmony.  The  sense  of  seeing  results,  it 
appears  to  us,  from  the  formation  of  a  picture  upon  the 
retina.  The  motion  of  the  arm  or  the  leg  appears  to  re- 
sult from  an  act  of  will ;  but  in  either  case  we  mistake 
coincidence  for  causation.  Between  substances  so  wholly 
alien  there  can  be  no  intercommunion  ;  and  we  only  sup- 
pose that  the  object  seen  produces  the  idea,  and  that  the 
desire  produces  the  movement,  because  the  phenomena  of 
matter  and  the  phenomena  of  spirit  are  so  contrived  as  to 
flow  always  in  the  same  order  and  sequence.  This  hypoth- 
esis, as  coming  from  Leibnitz,  has  been,  if  not  accepted, 
at  least  listened  to  respectfully ;  because  while  taking  it 
out  of  its  proper  place,  he  contrived  to  graft  it  upon  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  succeeded,  with  a  sort  of  speculative  legerde- 
main, in  making  it  appear  to  be  in  harmony  with  revealed 
religion.  Disguised  as  a  philosophy  of  Predestination,  and 
connected  with  the  Christian  doctrine  of  Retribution,  it 
steps  forward  with  an  air  of  unconscious  innocence,  as  if 
interfering  with  nothing  which  Christians  generally  believe. 
And  yet,  leaving  as  it  does  no  larger  scope  for  liberty  or 
responsibility  than  when  in  the  hands  of  Spinoza,1  Leibnitz, 

1  Since  these  words  were  written  a  book  has  appeared  in  Paris  by  an 
able  disciple  of  Leibnitz,  which,  although  it  does  not  lead  us  to  modify  the 
opinion  expressed  in  them,  yet  obliges  us  to  give  our  reasons  for  speaking 
as  we  do.  M.  de  Careil  *  has  discovered  in  the  library  at  Hanover,  a  MS. 


*  Refutation  Incdite  de  Spinoza.    Par  Leibnitz.     Precedes  (Viine  Mcmoire,  pat 
Foncher  do  Careil.    Paris.    1854. 


298  Spinoza. 

in  our  opinion,  has  only  succeeded  in  making  it  infinitely 
more  revolting.  Spinoza  could  not  regard  the  bad  man  as 
an  object  of  Divine  anger  and  a  subject  of  retributory 

in  the  handwriting  of  Leibnitz,  containing  a  series  of  remarks  on  the  book 
of  a  certain  John  "Wachter.  It  does  not  appear  who  this  John  Wachter 
was,  nor  by  what  accident  he  came  to  have  so  distinguished  a  critic.  If  we 
may  judge  by  the  extracts  at  present  before  us,  he  seems  to  have  been  an 
absurd  and  extravagant  person,  who  had  attempted  to  combine  the  the- 
ology of  the  Cabbala  with  the  very  little  which  he  was  able  to  understand  of 
the  philosophy  of  Spinoza;  and,  as  far  as  he  is  concerned,  neither  his  writ- 
ings nor  the  reflections  upon  them  are  of  interest  to  any  human  being. 
The  extravagance  of  Spinoza's  followers,  however,  furnished  Leibnitz  with 
an  opportunity  of  noticing  the  points  on  which  he  most  disapproved  of 
Spinoza  himself;  and  these  few  notices  M.  de  Careil  has  now  for  the  first 
time  published  as  The  Refutation  of  Spinoza,  by  Leibnitz.  They  are  ex- 
ceedingly brief  and  scanty;  and  the  writer  of  them  would  assuredly  have 
hesitated  to  describe  an  imperfect  criticism  by  so  ambitious  a  title.  The 
modern  editor,  however,  must  be  allowed  the  privilege  of  a  worshiper, 
and  we  will  not  quarrel  with  him  for  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  what  his 
master  had  accomplished.  We  are  indebted  to  his  enthusiasm  for  what  is 
at  least  a  curious  discovery,  and  we  will  not  qualify  the  gratitude  which  he 
has  earned  by  industry  and  good  will.  At  the  same  time,  the  notes  them- 
selves confirm  the  opinion  which  we  have  always  entertained,  that  Leibnitz 
did  not  understand  Spinoza.  Leibnitz  did  not  understand  him,  and  the 
followers  of  Leibnitz  do  not  understand  him  now.  If  he  were  no  more  than 
what  he  is  described  in  the  book  before  us  —  if  his  metaphysics  were  "  mis- 
erable," if  his  philosophy  was  absurd,  and  he  himself  nothing  more  than  a 
second-rate  disciple  of  Descartes  —  we  can  assure  M.  de  Careil  that  we 
should  long  ago  have  heard  the  last  of  him. 

There  must  be  something  else,  something  very  different  from  this,  to 
explain  the  position  which  he  holds  in  Germany,  or  the  fascination  which 
liis  writings  exerted  over  such  minds  as  those  of  Lessing  or  of  Goethe ;  the 
fact  of  so  enduring  an  influence  is  more  than  a  sufficient  answer  to  mere 
depreciating  criticism.  This,  however,  is  not  a  point  which  there  is  am- 
use in  pressing.  Our  present  business  is  to  justify  the  two  assertions  which 
we  have  made.  First,  that  Leibnitz  borrowed  his  Theory  of  the  Harmonie 
Pre-etablie  from  Spinoza,  without  acknowledgment;  and,  secondly,  that 
this  theory  is  quite  as  inconsistent  with  religion  as  is  that  of  Spinoza,  and 
only  differs  from  it  in  disguising  its  real  character. 

First  for  the  Harmonie  Pre-etablie.  Spinoza's  Ethics  appeared  in  1677; 
and  we  know  that  they  were  read  by  Leibnitz.  In  1696,  Leibnitz  an- 
nounced as  a  discovery  of  his  own,  a  Theory  of  The  Communication  of  Sub- 
rlances,  which  he  illustrates  in  the  following  manner:  — 

"  Vous  lie  comprenez  pas,  dites-vous,  comment  je  pourrois  prouver  ce 
ijue  j'ai  avance  touchant  la  communication,  ou  riiannonie  de  doux  sub 


Spinoza.  299 

punishment.  He  was  not  a  Christian,  and  made  no  pre- 
tension to  be  considered  such ;  and  it  did  not  occur  to  him 
to  regard  the  actions  of  a  being  which,  both  with  Leibnitz 

stances  aussi  differentcs  quo  1'ame  et  le  corps?  II  est  vrai  que  je  crois  en 
avoir  trouvd  le  moyen;  et  void  comment  je  pretends  vous  satisfaire.  Fi- 
gurez-vous  deux  horloges  ou  montres  qui  s'accordent  parfaitement.  Or 
cela  se  peut  faire  de  trois  manieres.  La  1«  consiste  dans  une  influence 
mutuelle.  La  2e  est  d'y  attacher  un  ouvrier  habile  qui  les  redresse,  et  les 
mette  d'accord  a  tons  momens.  La  3e  est  de  fabriquer  ces  deux  pendules 
avec  tant  d'art  et  de  justesse,  qu'on  se  puisse  assurer  de  leur  accord  dans 
la  suite.  Mettez  maintenant  1'ame  et  le  corps  a  la  place  de  ces  deux  pen- 
dules; leur  accord  peut  arriver  par  1'une  de  ces  trois  manieres.  La  vojrc 
d'influence  est  celle  de  la  philosophic  vulgaire;  mais  comme  1'on  ne  sauroit 
concevoir  des  particules  mate'rielles  qui  puissent  passer  d'une  de  ces  sub- 
stances dans  1'autrc,  il  faut  abandonner  ce  sentiment.  La  voye  de  1'assist- 
ance  contimtelle  du  Cre'ateur  est  celle  du  systeme  des  causes  occasionnelles ; 
mais  je  tiens  que  c'est  faire  intervenir  Deus  ex  machina-  dans  une  choso 
naturelle  et  ordinaire,  ou  scion  la  raison  il  ne  doit  concourir,  que  de  la 
maniere  qu'il  concourt  a  toutes  les  autres  choses  naturelles.  Ainsi  il  ne 
reste  que  mon  hypoth6se;  c'est-a-dire  que  la  voye  de  1'harmonie.  Dieu  a 
fait  des  le  commencement  chacune  de  ces  deux  substances  de  telle  nature, 
qu'en  ne  suivant  que  ces  propres  loix  qu'elle  a  repue  avec  son  6tre,  elle 
s'accorde  pourtant  avec  1'autre  tout  comme  s'il  y  avoit  une  influence  mu- 
tuelle, ou  comme  si  Dieu  y  mettoit  toujours  la  main  au-dela  de  son  concouvs 
general.  Apres  cela  je  n'ai  pas  besoin  de  rien  prouver  a  moins  qu'on  ne 
veuille  exiger  que  je  prouve  que  Dieu  est  assez  babilepour  se  servir  de 
cette  artifice,"  &c.  —  LEIBNITZ,  Opera,  p.  133.  Berlin  edition,  1840. 

Leibnitz,  as  we  have  said,  attempts  to  reconcile  his  system  with  Christian- 
ity, and  therefore,  of  course,  this  theory  of  the  relation  of  mind  and  body 
wears  a  very  different  aspect  under  his  treatment,  from  what  it  wears  under 
that  of  Spinoza.  But  Spinoza  and  Leibnitz  both  agree  in  this  one  peculiar 
conception  in  which,  they  differ  from  all  other  philosophers  before  or  after 
them  —  that  mind  and  body  have  no  direct  communication  with  each  other, 
and  that  the  phenomena  of  them  merely  correspond.  M.  de  Careil  says 
they  both  borrowed  it  from  Descartes;  but  that  is  impossible.  Descartes 
held  no  such  opinion ;  it  was  the  precise  point  of  disagreement  at  which 
Spinoza  parted  from  him ;  and  therefore,  since  in  point  of  date  Spinoza  had 
the  advantage  of  Leibnitz,  and  we  know  that  Leibnitz  was  acquainted  with 
his  writings,  we  must  either  suppose  that  he  was  directly  indebted  to 
Spinoza  for  an  obligation  which  he  ought  to  have  acknowledged,  or  else, 
which  is  extremely  improbable,  that  having  read  Spinoza  and  forgotten 
him,  he  afterwards  reoriginated  for  himself  one  of  the  most  singular  and 
peculiar  notions  which  was  ever  offered  to  the  belief  of  mankind. 

So  much  for  the  first  pout,  which,  after  all,  is  but  of  little  moment.  It 
Is  more  important  to  ascertain  whether,  in  the  hands  of  Leibnitz,  this  th«- 


300  Spinoza. 

and  himself  is  (to  use  his  own  expression)  an  automaton 
spirituals,  as  deserving  a  fiery  indignation  and  everlasting 
vengeance. 

"  Deus,"  according  to  Spinoza's  definition,  "  est  ens  con- 
stans  infinitis  attributis  quorum  unumquodque  zeternam  et 

ory  can  be  any  better  reconciled  with  what  h  commonly  meant  by  religion; 
whether,  that  is,  the  ideas  of  obedience  and  disobedience,  merit  and  de- 
merit, judgment  and  retribution,  have  any  proper  place  under  it.  Spinoza 
makes  no  pretension  to  any  thing  of  the  kind,  and  openly  declares  that  these 
ideas  are  ideas  merely,  and  human  mistakes.  Leibnitz,  in  opposition  to 
him,  endeavors  to  reestablish  them  in  the  following  manner.  He  con- 
eeives  that  the  system  of  the  universe  has  been  arranged  and  predeter- 
mined from  the  moment  at  which  it  was  launched  into  being;  from  the 
moment  at  which  God  selected  it,  with  all  its  details,  as  the  best  which 
could  exist ;  but  that  it  is  carried  on  by  the  action  of  individual  creatures 
(monads  as  he  calls  them)  which,  though  necessarily  obeying  the  laws  of 
their  existence,  yet  obey  them  with  a  "character  of  spontaneity,7'  which, 
although  "  automata,"  are  yet  voluntary  agents;  and  therefore,  by  the 
consent  of  their  hearts  to  their  actions,  entitle  themselves  to  moral  praise 
or  moral  censure.  The  question  is,  whether  by  the  mere  assertion  of  the 
coexistence  of  these  opposite  qualities  in  the  monad  man,  he  has  proved 
that  such  qualities  can  coexist.  In  our  opinion,  it  is  like  speaking  of  a 
circular  ellipse,  or  of  a  quadrilateral  triangle.  There  is  a  plain  dilemma  in 
these  matters  from  which  no  philosophy  can  extricate  itself.  If  men  can 
incur  guilt,  their  actions  might  be  other  than  they  are.  If  they  cannot  act 
otherwise  than  they  do,  they  cannot  incur  guilt.  So  at  least  it  appears  to 
us;  yet,  in  the  darkness  of  our  knowledge,  we  would  not  complain  merely 
of  a  theory,  and  if  our  earthly  life  were  all  in  all,  and  the  grave  remained 
the  extreme  horizon  of  our  hopes  and  fears,  the  Harmonic  Pre-etablie 
might  be  tolerated  as  credible,  and  admired  as  ingenious  and  beautiful. 
It  is  when  forcibly  attached  to  a  creed  of  the  future,  with  which  it  has  no 
natural  connection,  that  it  assumes  its  repulsive  features.  The  world  may 
be  in  the  main  good;  while  the  good,  from  the  unknown  condition  of  its 
existence,  may  be  impossible  without  some  intermixture  of  evil ;  and  although 
Leibnitz  was  at  times  staggered  even  himself  by  the  misery  and  wicked- 
ness which  he  witnessed,  and  was  driven  to  comfort  himself  with  the  reflec- 
tion that  this  earth  might  be  but  one  world  in  the  midst  of  the  universe, 
and  perhaps  the  single  checkered  exception  in  an  infinity  of  stainless 
globes,  yet  we  would  not  quarrel  with  a  hypothesis  because  it  was  imper- 
fect; it  might  pass  as  a  possible  conjecture  on  a  dark  subject,  when  noth- 
ing better  than  conjecture  was  attainable. 

But  as  soon  as  we  are  told  that  the  evil  in  these  human  "  automata," 
being  a  necessary  condition  of  this  world  which  God  has  called  into  being, 
is  yet  infinitely  detestable  to  God ;  that  the  creatures  who  suffer  under  the 
•ccursed  necessity  of  committing  sin  are  infinitely  guilty  in  God's  eyes,  fot 


Spinoza.  801 

infinitam  essentiam  exprimit."  Under  each  of  these  attri- 
butes infinita  sequuntur,  and  every  thing  which  an  infinite 
intelligence  can  conceive,  and  an  infinite  power  can  pro- 
duce, —  every  thing  which  follows  as  a  possibility  out  of 
the  divine  nature,  —  all  things  which  have  been,  and  are, 
and  will  be,  —  find  expression  and  actual  existence,  not 
under  one  attribute  only,  but  under  each  and  every  attri- 
bute. Language  is  so  ill-adapted  to  explain  such  a  system, 
that  even  to  stute  it  accurately  is  all  but  impossible,  and 
analogies  can  only  remotely  suggest  what  such  expressions 
mean.  But  it  is  as  if  it  were  said  that  the  same  thought 
might  be  expressed  in  an  infinite  variety  of  languages ;  and 
not  in  words  only,  but  in  action,  in  painting,  in  sculpture, 
in  music,  in  any  form  of  any  kind  which  can  be  employed 
as  a  means  of  spiritual  embodiment.  Of  all  these  infinite 
attributes,  two  only,  as  we  said,  are  known  to  us  —  exten- 
sion and  thought.  Material  phenomena  are  phenomena  of 
extension  ;  and  to  every  modification  of  extension  an  idea 
corresponds  under  the  attribute  of  thought.  Out  of  such 
a  compound  as  this  is  formed  man,  composed  of  body  and 
mind;  two  parallel  and  correspondent  modifications  eter- 
nally answering  one  another.  And  not  man  only,  but  all 
other  beings  and  things  are  similarly  formed  and  similarly 
animated ;  the  anima  or  mind  of  each  varying  according  to 
the  complicity  of  the  organism  of  its  material  counterpart. 
Although  body  does  not  think,  nor  affect  the  mind's  power 
of  thinking,  and  mind  does  not  control  body,  nor  commu- 

doing  what  the}'  have  no  power  to  avoid,  and  may  therefore  be  justly  pun- 
ished in  everlasting  fire;  we  recoil  against  the  paradox. 

No  disciple  of  Leibnitz  will  maintain,  that  unless  he  had  found  this 
belief  in  an  eternity  of  penal  retribution  an  article  of  the  popular  creed, 
such  a  doctrine  would  have  formed  a  natural  appendage  of  his  system; 
aud  if  M.  de  Careil  desires  to  know  why  the  influence  of  Spinoza,  whose 
genius  he  considers  so  insignificant,  has  been  so  deep  and  so  enduring, 
while  Leibnitz  has  only  secured  for  himself  a  mere  admiration  of  his  tal- 
ents, it  is  because  Spinoza  was  not  afraid  to  be  consistent,  even  at  tho 
price  of  the  world's  reprobation,  and  refused  to  purchase  the  applause  of 
iris  own  agf'  at  (he  sacrifice  of  sincerity. 


802  Spinoza. 

nicate  to  it  either  motion  or  rest  or  any  influence  from 
itself,  yet  body  with  all  its  properties  is  the  object  or  ideate 
of  mind  :  whatsoever  body  does,  mind  perceives  ;  and  the 
greater  the  energizing  power  of  the  first,  the  greater  the 
perceiving  power  of  the  second.  And  this  is  not  because 
they  are  adapted  one  to  the  other  by  some  inconceivable 
preordinating  power,  but  because  mind  and  body  are  una 
et  eadem  res,  the  one  absolute  being  affected  in  one  and  the 
same  manner,  but  expressed  under  several  attributes  ;  the 
modes  and  affections  of  each  attribute  having  that  being 
for  their  cause,  as  he  exists  under  that  attribute  of  which 
they  are  modes,  and  no  other ;  idea  being  caused  by  idea, 
and  body  affected  by  body ;  the  image  on  the  retina  being 
produced  by  the  object  reflected  upon  it,  the  idea  or  image 
in  our  minds  by  the  idea  of  that  object,  &c.,  &c. 

A  solution  so  remote  from  all  ordinary  ways  of  thinking 
on  these  matters  is  so  difficult  to  grasp,  that  one  can  hardly 
speak  of  it  as  being  probable,  or  as  being  improbable. 
Probability  extends  only  to  what  we  can  imagine  as  pos- 
sible, and  Spinoza's  theory  seems  to  lie  beyond  the  range 
within  which  our  judgment  can  exercise  itself.  In  our 
own  opinion,  indeed,  as  we  have  already  said,  the  entire 
subject  is  one  with  which  we  have  no  business;  and  the 
explanation  of  our  nature,  if  it  is  ever  to  be  explained  to 
us,  is  reserved  till  we  are  in  some  other  state  of  existence. 
We  do  not  disbelieve  Spinoza  because  what  he  suggests  is 
in  itself  incredible.  The  chances  may  be  millions  to  one 
against  his  being  right ;  yet  the  real  truth,  if  we  knew  it, 
would  be  probably  at  least  as  strange  as  his  conception  of 
it.  But  we  are  firmly  convinced  that  of  these  questions, 
and  of  all  like  them,  practical  answers  only  lie  within  the 
reach  of  human  faculties;  and  that  in  "researches  into 
the  absolute  "  we  are  on  the  road  which  ends  nowhere. 

Among  the  difficulties,  however,  most  properly  akin  to 
this  philosophy  itself,  there  is  one  most  obvious,  namely, 
that  if  the  attributes  of  God  be  infinite,  and  each  particular 


Spinoza*  303 

thing  is  expressed  under  them  all,  then  mind  and  body 
express  but  an  infinitesimal  portion  of  the  nature  of  each 
of  ourselves;  and  this  human  nature  exists  (i.  e.,  there 
exists  corresponding  modes  of  substance)  in  the  whole 
infinity  of  the  divine  nature  under  attributes  differing  each 
from  each,  and  all  from  mind  and  all  from  body.  That 
this  must  be  so  follows  from  the  definition  of  the  Infinite 
Being,  and  the  nature  of  the  distinction  between  the  two 
attributes  which  are  known  to  us ;  and  if  this  be  so,  why 
does  not  the  mind  perceive  something  of  all  these  other 
attributes?  The  objection  is  well  expressed  by  a  corre- 
spondent (Letter  67)  :  —  "It  follows  from  what  you  say," 
a  friend  writes  to  Spinoza,  "  that  the  modification  which 
constitutes  my  mind,  and  that  which  constitutes  my  body, 
although  it  be  one  and  the  same  modification,  yet  must  be 
expressed  in  an  infinity  of  ways :  one  way  by  thought,  a 
second  way  by  extension,  a  third  by  some  attribute  un- 
known to  me,  and  so  on  to  infinity ;  the  attributes  being 
infinite  in  number,  and  the  order  and  connection  of  mo^s 
being  the  same  in  them  all.  Why,  then,  does  the  mind 
perceive  the  modes  of  but  one  attribute  only  ?  " 

Spinoza's  answer  is  curious:  unhappily,  a  fragment  of 
his  letter  only  is  extant,  so  that  it  is  too  brief  to  be  satis- 
factory :  — 

In  reply  to  your  difficulty  (he  says),  although  each  particular 
thing  be  truly  in  the  Infinite  rnind,  conceived  in  Infinite  modes, 
the  Infinite  idea  answering  to  all  these  cannot  constitute  one  and 
the  same  mind  of  any  single  being,  but  must  constitute  Infinite 
minds.  No  one  of  all  these  Infinite  ideas  has  any  connection  •with 
another. 

He  means,  we  suppose,  that  God's  mind  only  perceives, 
or  can  perceive,  things  under  their  Infinite  expression,  and 
that  the  idea  of  each  several  mode,  under  whatever  attri- 
bute, constitutes  a  separate  mind. 

We  do  not  know  that  we  can  add  any  thing  to  this  ex- 
planation ;  the  difficulty  lies  in  the  audacious  sweep  of  the 


304  Spinoza. 

speculation  itself;  we  will,  however,  attempt  an  illustration, 
although  we  fear  it  will  be  to  illustrate  obscurum  per  obscu- 
ring. Let  A  B  C  D  be  four  out  of  the  infinite  number  of 
the  Divine  attributes.  A  the  attribute  of  mind ;  B  the 
attribute  of  extension  ;  C  and  D  other  attributes,  the  nature 
of  which  is  not  known  to  us.  Now,  A,  as  the  attribute  of 
mind,  is  that  which  perceives  all  which  takes  place  under 
B  C  and  D,  but  it  is  only  as  it  exists  in  God  that  it  forms 
the  universal  consciousness  of  all  attributes  at  once.  In  its 
modifications  it  is  combined  separately  with  the  modifica- 
tions of  each,  constituting,  in  combination  with  the  modes 
of  each  attribute,  a  separate  being.  As  forming  the  mind 
of  B,  A  perceives  what  takes  place  in  B,  but  not  what  takes 
place  in  C  or  D.  Combined  with  B,  it  forms  the  soul  of  the 
human  body,  and  generally  the  soul  of  all  modifications  of 
extended  substance  ;  combined  with  C,  it  forms  the  soul  of 
some  other  analogous  being  ;  combined  with  D,  again  of  an- 
other ;  but  the  combinations  are  only  in  pairs,  in  which  A  is 
constant.  A  and  B  make  one  being,  A  and  C  another,  A 
and  D  a  third ;  but  B  will  not  combine  with  C,  nor  C  with 
D  ;  each  attribute  being,  as  it  were,  conscious  only  of  itself. 
And  therefore,  although  to  those  modifications  of  mind  and 
extension  which  we  call  ourselves,  there  are  corresponding 
modifications  under  C  and  D,  and  generally  under  each  of 
the  infinite  attributes  of  God,  each  of  oxirselves  being  in  a 
sense  infinite  —  nevertheless,  we  neither  have  nor  can  have 
any  knowledge  of  ourselves  in  this  infinite  aspect ;  our 
actual  consciousness  being  limited  to  the  phenomena  of 
sensible  experience. 

English  readers,  however,  are  likely  to  care  little  for  all 
this  ;  they  will  look  to  the  general  theory,  and  judge  of  it 
as  its  aspect  affects  them.  And  first,  perhaps,  they  will  be 
tempted  to  throw  aside  as  absurd  the  notion  that  their 
bodies  go  through  the  many  operations  which  they  ex- 
perience them  to  do,  undirected  by  their  minds.  It  is  a 
thing,  they  may  say,  at  once  preposterous  and  incredible. 


Spinoza.  305 

It  is,  however,  less  absurd  than  it  seems ;  and,  though  we 
could  not  persuade  ourselves  to  believe  it,  absurd  in  the 
sense  of  having  nothing  to  be  said  for  it,  it  certainly  is  not. 
It  is  far  easier,  for  instance,  to  imagine  the  human  body 
capable  by  its  own  virtue,  and  by  the  laws  of  material 
organization,  of  building  a  house,  than  of  thinking  ;  and  yet 
men  are  allowed  to  say  that  the  body  thinks,  without  being 
regarded  as  candidates  for  a  lunatic  asylum.  We  see  the 
seed  shoot  up  into  stem  and  leaf  and  throw  out  flowers ; 
we  observe  it  fulfilling  processes  of  chemistry  more  subtle 
than  were  ever  executed  in  Liebig's  laboratory,  and  pro- 
ducing structures  more  cunning  than  man  can  imitate. 
The  bird  builds  her  nest,  the  spider  shapes  out  its  delicate 
web,  and  stretches  it  in  the  path  of  his  prey ;  directed  not 
by  calculating  thought,  as  we  conceive  ourselves  to  be,  but 
by  some  motive  influence,  our  ignorance  of  the  nature  of 
which  we  disguise  from  ourselves,  and  call  it  instinct,  but 
which  we  believe  at  least  to  be  some  property  residing  in  the 
organization.  We  are  not  to  suppose  that  the  human  body, 
the  most  complex  of  all  material  structures,  has  slighter 
powers  in  it  than  the  bodies  of  a  seed,  a  bird,  or  an  insect. 
Let  us  listen  to  Spinoza  himself:  — 

There  can  be  no  doubt  (he  says)  that  this  hypothesis  is  true  ; 
but  unless  I  can  prove  it  from  experience,  men  will  not,  I  fear,  be 
induced  even  to  reflect  upon  it  calmly,  so  persuaded  are  they  that 
it  is  by  the  mind  only  that  their  todies  are  set  in  motion.  And 
yet  what  body  can  or  cannot  do  no  one  has  yet  determined ; 
body,  i.  e.,  by  the  law  of  its  own  nature,  and  without  assistance 
from  mind.  No  one  has  so  probed  the  human  frame  as  to  have 
detected  all  its  functions  and  exhausted  the  list  of  them ;  there 
are  powers  exhibited  by  animals  far  exceeding  human  sagacity  ; 
and,  again,  feats  are  performed  by  somnambulists  on  which  in  the 
waking  state  the  same  persons  would  never  venture  —  itself  a 
proof  that  body  is  able  to  accomplish  what  mind  can  only  admire. 
Men  say  that  mind  moves  body,  but  how  it  moves  it  they  cannot 
tell,  or  what  degree  of  motion  it  can  impart  to  it ;  so  that,  in  fact, 
they  do  not  know  what  they  say,  and  are  only  confessing  their  own 
20 


306  Spinoza. 

ignorance  in  specious  language.  They  will  answer  me,  that 
whether  or  not  they  understand  how  it  can  be,  yet  that  they  are 
assured  by  plain  experience  that  unless  mind  could  perceive,  body 
would  be  altogether  inactive  ;  they  know  that  it  depends  on  the 
mind  whether  the  tongue  speaks  or  is  silent.  But  do  they  not 
equally  experience  that  if  their  bodies  are  paralyzed  their  minds 
cannot  think  ?  —  that  if  their  bodies  are  asleep  their  minds  are 
without  power?  —  that  their  minds  are  not  at  all  times  equally 
able  to  exert  themselves  even  on  the  same  subject,  but  depend  on 
the  state  of  their  bodies  ?  And  as  for  experience  proving  that  the 
members  of  the  body  can  be  controlled  by  the  mind,  I  fear  ex- 
perience proves  very  much  the  reverse.  But  it  is  absurd  (they 
rejoin)  to  attempt  to  explain  from  the  mere  laws  of  body  such 
things  as  pictures,  or  palaces,  or  works  of  art ;  the  body  could  not 
build  a  church  unless  mind  directed  it.  I  have  shown,  however, 
that  we  do  not  yet  know  what  body  can  or  cannot  do,  or  what 
would  naturally  follow  from  the  structure  of  it ;  that  we  experi- 
ence in  the  feats  of  somnambulists  something  which  antecedently 
to  that  experience  would  have  seemed  incredible.  This  fabric  of 
the  human  body  exceeds  infinitely  any  contrivance  of  human  skill, 
and  an  infinity  of  things,  as  I  have  already  proved,  ought  to  fol- 
low from  it. 

"We  are  not  concerned  to  answer  this  reasoning,  although 
if  the  matter  were  one  the  debating  of  which  could  be  of 
any  profit,  it  would  undoubtedly  have  its  weight,  and  would 
require  to  be  patiently  considered.  Life  is  too  serious, 
however,  to  be  wasted  with  impunity  over  speculations  in 
which  certainty  is  impossible,  and  in  which  we  are  trifling 
with  what  is  inscrutable. 

Objections  of  a  far  graver  kind  were  anticipated  by  Spi- 
noza himself,  when  he  went  on  to  gather  out  of  his  philos- 
ophy "  that  the  mind  of  man  being  part  of  the  Infinite 
intelligence,  when  we  say  that  such  a  mind  perceives  this 
thing  or  that,  we  are,  in  fact,  saying  that  God  perceives  it, 
not  as  He  is  infinite,  but  as  he  is  represented  by  the  nature 
of  this  or  that  idea  ;  and  similarly,  when  we  say  that  a  man 
does  this  or  that  action,  we  say  that  God  does  it,  not  qua 
He  is  infinite,  but  qua  He  is  expressed  in  that  man's  na- 


Spinoza.  307 

ture."  "  Here,"  he  says,  "  many  readers  will  no  doubt  hes« 
itate,  and  many  difficulties  will  occur  to  them  in  the  way 
of  such  a  supposition." 

We  confess  that  we  ourselves  are  among  these  hesitat 
ing  readers.  As  long  as  the  Being  whom  Spinoza  so  freely 
names  remains  surrounded  with  the  associations  which  in 
this  country  we  bring  with  us  out  of  our  childhood,  not  all 
the  logic  in  the  world  would  make  us  listen  to  language 
such  as  this.  It  is  not  so,  —  we  know  it,  and  that  is  enough. 
We  are  well  aware  Tof  the  phalanx  of  difficulties  which  lie 
about  our  theistic  conceptions.  They  are  quite  enough,  if 
religion  depended  on  speculative  consistency,  and  not  in 
obedience  of  life,  to  perplex  and  terrify  us.  What  are  we  ? 
what  is  any  thing  ?  If  it  be  not  divine  —  what  is  it  then  ? 
If  created  —  out  of  what  is  it  created  ?  and  how  created 
—  and  why  ?  These  questions,  and  others  far  more  mo- 
mentous which  we  do  not  enter  upon  here,  may  be  asked 
and  cannot  be  answered  ;  but  we  cannot  any  the  more  con- 
sent to  Spinoza  on  the  ground  that  he  alone  consistently 
provides  an  answer ;  because,  as  we  have  said  again  and 
again,  we  do  not  care  to  have  them  answered  at  all.  Con- 
science is  the  single  tribunal  to  which  we  choose  to  be 
referred,  and  conscience  declares  imperatively  that  what 
he  says  is  not  true.  It  is  painful  to  speak  of  all  this,  and 
as  far  as  possible  v;e  designedly  avoid  it.  Pantheism  is  not 
Atheism,  but  the  Infinite  Positive  and  the  Infinite  Nega- 
tive are  not  so  remote  from  one  another  in  their  practical 
bearings ;  only  let  us  remember  that  we  are  far  indeed 
from  the  truth  if  we  think  that  God  to  Spinoza  was  nothing 
else  but  that  world  which  we  experience.  It  is  but  one  of 
infinite  expressions  of  Him  —  a  conception  which  makes  us 
giddy  in  the  effort  to  realize  it. 

We  have  arrived  at  last  at  the  outwork  of  the  whole 
matter  in  its  bearings  upon  life  and  human  duty.  It  was 
in  the  search  after  this  last,  that  Spinoza,  as  we  said,  trav- 
slled  over  so  strange  a  country,  and  we  now  expect  his 


308  Spinoza. 

conclusions.  To  discover  the  true  good  of  man,  to  direct 
his  actions  to  such  ends  as  will  secure  to  him  real  and  last- 
ing felicity,  and,  by  a  comparison  of  his  powers  with  the 
objects  offered  to  them,  to  ascertain  how  far  they  are  capa- 
ble of  arriving  at  these  objects,  and  by  what  means  they 
can  best  be  trained  towards  them  —  is  the  aim  "which  Spi- 
noza assigns  to  philosophy.  "  Most  people,"  he  adds,  "  de- 
ride or  vilify  their  nature  ;  it  is  a  better  thing  to  endeavor 
to  understand  it ;  and  however  extravagant  my  proceeding 
may  be  thought,  I  propose  to  analyze  the  properties  of  that 
nature  as  if  it  were  a  mathematical  figure."  Mind  being, 
as  he  conceives  himself  to  have  shown,  nothing  else  than 
the  idea  corresponding  to  this  or  that  affection  of  body,  we 
are  not,  therefore,  to  think  of  it  as  a  faculty,  but  simply 
and  merely  as  an  act.  There  is  no  general  power  called 
intellect,  any  more  than  there  is  any  general  abstract  voli- 
tion, but  only  hie  ct  ille  intellectus  et  hcec  et  ilia  volitio. 

Again,  by  the  word  "  Mind  "  is  understood  not  merely  an 
act  or  acts  of  will  or  intellect,  but  all  forms  also  of  con- 
sciousness of  sensation  or  emotion.  The  human  body  being 
composed  of  many  small  bodies,  the  mind  is  similarly  com- 
posed of  many  minds,  and  the  unity  of  body  and  of  mind 
depends  on  the  relation  which  the  component  portions 
maintain  towards  each  other.  This  is  obviously  the  case 
with  body ;  and  if  we  can  translate  metaphysics  into  com- 
mon experience,  it  is  equally  the  case  with  mind.  There 
are  pleasures  of  sense  and  pleasures  of  intellect ;  a  thou- 
sand tastes,"  tendencies,  and  inclinations  form  our  mental 
composition  ;  and  since  one  contradicts  another,  and  each 
has  a  tendency  to  become  dominant,  it  is  only  in  the  har- 
monious equipoise  of  their  several  activities,  in  their  due 
and  just  subordination,  that  any  unity  of  action  or  consist- 
ency of  feeling  is  possible.  After  a  masterly  analysis  of 
all  these  tendencies  (the  most  complete  by  far  which  has 
ever  been  made  by  any  moral  philosopher),  Spinoza  arrives 
at  the  principles  under  which  unity  and  consistency  can  be 


Spinoza.  309 

obtained  as  the  condition  upon  which  a  being  so  composed 
can  look  for  any  sort  of  happiness ;  and  these  principles, 
arrived  at  as  they  are  by  a  route  so  different,  are  the  same, 
and  are  proposed  by  Spinoza  as  being  "the  same,  as  those 
of  the  Christian  religion. 

It  might  seem  impossible  in  a  system  which  binds  to- 
gether in  so  inexorable  a  sequence  the  relations  of  cause 
and  effect,  to  make  a  place  for  the  action  of  self-control ; 
but  consideration  will  show  that,  however  vast  the  differ- 
ence between  those  who  deny  and  those  who  affirm  the 
liberty  of  the  will  (in  the  sense  in  which  the  expression  is 
usually  understood),  it  is  not  a  difference  which  affects  the 
conduct  or  alters  the  practical  bearings  of  it.  Conduct 
may  be  determined  by  laws — laws  as  absolute  as  those 
of  matter ;  and  yet  the  one  as  well  as  the  other  may  be 
brought  under  control  by  a  proper  understanding  of  those 
laws.  Now,  -experience  seems  plainly  to  say,  that  while  all 
our  actions  arise  out  of  desire,  —  that  whatever  we  do,  we 
do  for  the  sake  of  something  which  we  wish  to  be  or  to 
obtain,  —  we  are  differently  affected  towards  what  is  pro- 
posed to  us  as  an  object  of  desire,  in  proportion  as  we 
understand  the  nature  of  such  object  in  itself  and  in  its 
consequences.  The  better  we  know,  the  better  we  act; 
and  the  fallacy  of  all  common  arguments  against  necessi- 
tarianism lies  in  the  assumption  that  it  leaves  no  room  for 
self-direction :  it  merely  insists,  in  exact  conformity  with 
experience,  on  the  conditions  under  which  self-determina- 
tion is  possible.  Conduct,  according  to  the  necessitarian, 
depends  on  knowledge.  Let  a  man  certainly  know  that 
there  is  poison  in  the  cup  of  wine  before  him,  and  he  will 
not  drink  it.  By  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  his  desire  for 
the  wine  is  overcome  by  the  fear  of  the  pain  or  the  death 
which  will  follow.  So  with  every  thing  which  comes  before 
him.  Let  the  consequences  of  any  action  be  clear,  defi- 
nite, and  inevitable,  and  though  Spinoza  would  not  say  that 
the  knowledge  of  them  will  be  absolutely  sufficient  to  de« 


810  Spinoza. 

termine  the  conduct  (because  the  clearest  knowledge  may 
be  overborne  by  violent  passion),  yet  it  is  the  best  which 
we  have  to  trust  to,  and  will  do  much  if  it  cannot  do  all. 

On  this  hypothesis,  after  a  diagnosis  of  the  various  tend 
encies  of  human  nature,  called  commonly  the  passions 
and  affections,  he  returns  upon  the  nature  of  our  ordinary 
knowledge  to  derive  out  of  it  the  means  for  their  subordi- 
nation. All  these  tendencies  of  themselves  seek  their  own 
objects  —  seek  them  blindly  and  immoderately ;  and  the 
mistakes  and  the  unhappinesses  of  life  arise  from  the  want 
of  due  understanding  of  these  objects,  and  a  just  modera- 
tion of  the  desire  for  them.  His  analysis  is  remarkably 
clear,  but  it  is  too  long  for  us  to  enter  upon  it ;  the  impor- 
tant thing  being  the  character  of  the  control  which  is  to  be 
exerted.  To  arrive  at  this,  he  employs  a  distinction  of 
great  practical  utility,  and  which  is  peculiarly  his  own. 

Following  his  tripartite  division  of  knowledge,  he  finds 
all  kinds  of  it  arrange  themselves  under  one  of  two  classes, 
and  to  be  either  adequate  or  inadequate.  By  adequate 
knowledge  he  does  not  mean  what  is  exhaustive  and  com- 
plete, but  what,  as  far  as  it  goes,  is  distinct  and  unconfused : 
by  inadequate,  he  means  what  we  know  merely  as  fact 
either  derived  from  our  own  sensations,  or  from  the  author- 
ity of  others,  while  of  the  connection  of  it  with  other  facts, 
of  the  causes,  effects,  or  meaning  of  it  we  know  nothing. 
We  may  have  an  adequate  idea  of  a  circle,  though  we  are 
unacquainted  with  all  the  properties  which  belong  to  it ; 
we  conceive  it  distinctly  as  a  figure  generated  by  the  rota- 
tion of  a  line,  one  end  of  which  is  stationary.  Phenomena, 
on  the  other  hand,  however  made  known  to  us,  —  phenom- 
ena of  the  senses,  and  phenomena  of  experience,  as  long 
as  they  remain  phenomena  merely,  and  unseen  in  any 
higher  relation,  —  we  can  never  know  except  as  inade- 
quately. We  cannot  tell  what  outward  things  are  by  com- 
ing in  contact  with  certain  features  of  them.  We  have  a 
very  imperfect  acquaintance  even  with  our  own  bodies,  and 


Spinoza.  311 

the  sensations  which  we  experience  of  various  kinds  rather 
indicate  to  us  the  nature  of  these  bodies  themselves  than 
of  the  objects  which  affect  them.  Now,  it  is  obvious  that 
the  greater  part  of  mankind  act  only  upon  knowledge  of 
this  latter  kind.  The  amusements,  even  the  active  pur- 
suits, of  most  of  us  remain  wholly  within  the  range  of 
uncertainty,  and,  therefore,  are  full  of  hazard  and  precari- 
ousness :  little  or  nothing  issues  as  we  expect.  We  look 
for  pleasure  and  we  find  pain ;  we  shun  one  pain  and  find  a 
greater ;  and  thus  arises  the  ineffectual  character  which  we 

O  * 

so  complain  of  in  life  —  the  disappointments,  failures,  mor- 
tifications which  form  the  material  of  so  much  moral  medi- 
tation on  the  vanity  of  the  world.  Much  of  all  this  is  inevi- 
table from  the  constitution  of  our  nature.  The  mind  is  too 
infirm  to  be  entirely  occupied  with  higher  knowledge.  The 
conditions  of  life  oblige  us  to  act  in  many  cases  which  can- 
not be  understood  by  us  except  with  the  utmost  inadequacy  ; 
and  the  resignation  to  the  higher  will  which  has  determined 
all  things  in  the  wisest  way,  is  imperfect  in  the  best  of  us. 
Yet  much  is  possible,  if  not  all ;  and,  although  through  a 
large  tract  of  life  "  there  comes  one  event  to  all,  to  the  wise 
and  to  the  unwise,"  "  yet  wisdom  excelleth  folly  as  far  as 
light  excelleth  darkness."  .The  phenomena  of  experience, 
after  inductive  experiment,  and  just  and  careful  considera- 
tion, arrange  themselves  under  laws  uniform  in  their  opera- 
tion, and  furnishing  a  guide  to  the  judgment ;  and  over  all 
things,  although  the  interval  must  remain  unexplored  for- 
ever, because  what  we  would  search  into  is  infinite,  may 
be  seen  the  beginning  of  all  things,  the  absolute,  eternal 
God.  "  Mens  humana,"  Spinoza  continues,  "  quaedam  agit, 
qusedam  vero  patitur."  In  so  far  as  it  is  influenced  by  in- 
adequate ideas  —  "  eatenus  patitur  "  —  it  is  passive  and  in 
bondage,  it  is  the  sport  of  fortune  and  caprice :  in  so  far  as 
its  ideas  are  adequate  —  "  eatenus  agit "  —  it  is  active,  it  is 
itself.  While  we  are  governed  by  outward  temptations,  by 
the  casual  pleasures,  by  the  fortunes  or  the  misfortunes  of 


812  Spinoza. 

life,  we  are  but  instruments,  yielding  ourselves  to  be  acted 
upon  as  the  animal  is  acted  on  by  its  appetites,  or  the  inan- 
imate matter  by  the  laws  which  bind  it ;  we  are  slaves  — 
instruments,  it  may  be,  of  some  higher  purpose  in  the  order 
of  Nature,  but  in  ourselves  nothing ;  instruments  which  are 
employed  for  a  special  work,  and  which  are  consumed  in 
effecting  it.  So  far,  on  the  contrary,  as  we  know  clearly 
what  we  do,  as  we  understand  what  we  are,  and  direct  our 
conduct  not  by  the  passing  emotion  of  the  moment,  but  by 
a.  grave,  clear,  and  constant  knowledge  of  what  is  really 
good,  so  far  we  are  said  to  act,  —  we  are  ourselves  the 
spring  of  our  own  activity,  —  we  pursue  the  genuine  well- 
being  of  our  entire  nature,  and  that  we  can  always  find, 
and  it  never  disappoints  us  when  found. 

All  things  desire  life  ;  all  things  seek  for  energy  and 
fuller  and  ampler  being.  The  component  parts  of  man,  his 
various  appetites  and  passions,  are  seeking  larger  activity 
while  pursuing  each  its  immoderate  indulgence ;  and  it  is 
the  primary  law  of  every  single  being  that  it  so  follows 
what  will  give  it  increased  vitality.  Whatever  will  con- 
tribute to  such  increase  is  the  proper  good  of  each ;  and 
the  good  of  man  as  a  united  being  is  measured  and  deter- 
mined by  the  effect  of  it  upon  his  collective  powers.  The 
appetites  gather  power  from  their  several  objects  of  desire ; 
but  the  power  of  the  part  is  the  weakness  of  the  whole  ; 
and  man  as  a  collective  person  gathers  life,  being,  and  self- 
mastery  only  from  the  absolute  good,  —  the  source  of  all 
real  good,  and  truth,  and  energy,  —  that  is,  God.  The 
love  of  God  is  the  extinction  of  all  other  loves  and  all 
other  desires.  To  know  God,  as  far  as  man  can  know  him, 
is  power,  self-government,  and  peace.  And  this  is  virtue, 
and  this  is  blessedness. 

Thus,  by  a  formal  process  of  demonstration,  we  are 
brought  round  to  the  old  conclusions  of  theology;  and 
Spinoza  protests  that  it  is  no  new  doctrine  which  he  is 
teaching,  but  that  it  is  one  which  in  various  dialects  has 


Spinoza.  313 

been  believed  from  the  beginning  of  the  world.  Happi- 
ness depends  on  the  consistency  and  coherency  of  charac- 
ter, and  that  coherency  can  only  be  given  by  the  knowledge 
of  the  One  Being,  to  know  whom  is  to  know  all  things  ade- 
quately, and  to  love  whom  is  to  have  conquered  every  other 
inclination.  The  more  entirely  our  minds  rest  on  Him  — 
the  more  distinctly  we  regard  all  things  in  their  relation 
to  Him,  the  more  we  cease  to  be  under  the  dominion  of 
external  things ;  we  surrender  ourselves  consciously  to  do 
his  will,  and  as  living  men  and  not  as  passive  things  we 
become  the  instruments  of  his  power.  When  the  true  na- 
ture and  true  causes  of  our  affections  become  clear  to  us, 
they  have  no  more  power  to  influence  us.  The  more  we 
understand,  the  less  can  feeling  sway  us  ;  we  know  that  all 
things  are  what  they  are,  because  they  are  so  constituted 
that  they  could  not  be  otherwise,  and  we  cease  to  be  an- 
gry with  our  brother,  because  he  disappoints  us ;  we  shall 
not  fret  at  calamity,  nor  complain  of  fortune,  because  no 
such  thing  as  fortune  exists ;  and  if  we  fail  it  is  better 
than  if  we  had  succeeded,  not  perhaps  for  ourselves,  yet 
for  the  universe.  We  cannot  fear  when  nothing  can  be- 
fall us  except  what  God  wills,  and  we  shall  not  violently 
hope,  when  the  future,  whatever  it  be,  will  be  the  best 
which  is  possible.  Seeing  all  things  in  their  place  in  the 
everlasting  order,  Past  and  Future  will  not  affect  us.  The 
temptation  of  present  pleasure  will  not  overcome  the  cer- 
tainty of  future  pain,  for  the  pain  will  be  as  sure  as  the 
pleasure,  and  we  shall  see  all  things  under  a  rule  of  ada- 
mant. The  foolish  and  the  ignorant  are  led  astray  by  the 
idea  of  contingency,  and  expect  to  escape  the  just  issues  of 
their  actions ;  the  wise  man  will  know  that  each  action 
brings  with  it  its  inevitable  consequences,  which  even  God 
cannot  change  without  ceasing  to  be  himself. 

In  such  a  manner,  through  all  the  conditions  of  life,  Spi- 
noza pursues  the  advantages  which  will  accrue  to  man  from 
the  knowledge  of  God,  God  and  man  being  what  his  phi- 


314  Spinoza. 

losophy  has  described  then?..  His  practical  teaching  is  sin- 
gularly beautiful ;  although  much  of  its  beauty  is  perhaps 
due  to  associations  which  have  arisen  out  of  Christianity, 
and  which  in  the  system  of  Pantheism  have  no  proper  abid- 
ing place.  Retaining,  indeed,  all  that  is  beautiful  in  Chris- 
tianity, he  even  seems  to  have  relieved  himself  of  the  more 
fearful  features  of  the  general  creed.  He  acknowledges  no 
hell,  no  devil,  no  positive  and  active  agency  at  enmity  with 
God ;  but  sees  in  all  things  infinite  gradations  of  beings, 
all  in  their  way  obedient,  and  all  fulfilling  the  part  allotted 
to  them.  Doubtless  a  pleasant  exchange  and  a  grateful 
deliverance,  if  only  we  could-  persuade  ourselves  that  a  hun- 
dred pages  of  judiciously  arranged  demonstrations  could 
really  and  indeed  have  worked  it  for  us  ;  if  we  could  in- 
deed believe  that  we  could  have  the  year  without  its 
winter,  day  without  night,  sunlight  without  shadow.  Evil 
is  unhappily  too  real  a  thing  to  be  so  disposed  of. 

But  if  we  cannot  believe  Spinoza's  system  taken  in  its 
entire  completeness,  yet  we  may  not  blind  ourselves  to  the 
disinterestedness  and  calm  nobility  which  pervade  his 
theories  of  human  life  and  obligation.  He  will  not  hear 
of  a  virtue  which  desires  to  be  rewarded.  Virtue  is  the 
power  of  God  in  the  human  soul,  and  that  is  the  exhaust- 
ive end  of  all  human  desire.  "  Beatitude  non  est  virtutis 
pretium,  sed  ipsa  virtus.  2sih.il  aliud  est  quam  ipsa  animi 
acquiescentia,  qua?  ex  Dei  intuitiva  cognitione  oritur."  The 
same  spirit  of  generosity  exhibits  itself  in  all  its  conclu- 
sions. The  ordinary  objects  of  desire,  he  says,  are  of  such 
a  kind  that  for  one  man  to  obtain  them  is  for  another  to 
lose  them  ;  and  this  alone  would  suffice  to  prove  that  they 
are  not  what  any  man  should  labor  after.  But  the  fullness 
of  God  suffices  for  us  all ;  and  he  who  possesses  this  good 
desires  only  to  communicate  it  to  every  one,  and  to  make 
all  mankind  as  happy  as  himself.  And  again  :  —  "  The 
wise  man  will  not  speak  in  society  of  his  neighbor's  faults, 
and  sparingly  of  the  infirmity  of  human  nature ;  but  he 


Spinoza.  315 

will  speak  largely  of  human  virtue  and  human  power,  and 
of  the  means  by  which  that  nature  can  best  be  perfected, 
so  to  lead  men  to  put  away  that  fear  and  aversion  with 
which  they  look  on  goodness,  and  learn  with  relieved  hearts 
to  love  and  desire  it."  And  once  more  :  —  "  He  who  loves 
God  will  not  desire  that  God  should  love  him  in  return  with 
any  partial  or  particular  affection,  for  that  is  to  desire  that 
God  for  his  sake  should  change  his  everlasting  nature  and 
become  lower  than  himself." 

One  grave  element,  indeed,  of  a  religious  faith  would 
seem  in  such  a  system  to  be  necessarily  wanting.  Where 
individual  action  is  resolved  into  the  modified  activity  of 
the  Universal  Being,  all  absorbing  and  all  evolving,  the  in- 
dividuality of  the  personal  man  is  but  an  evanescent  and 
unreal  shadow.  Such  individuality  as  we  now  possess, 
whatever  it  be,  might  continue  to  exist  in  a  future  state  as 
really  as  it  exists  in  the  present,  and  those  to  whom  it  be- 
longs might  be  anxious  naturally  for  its  persistence.  Yet 
it  would  seem  that  if  the  soul'be  nothing  except  the  idea 
of  a  body  actually  existing,  when  that  body  is  decomposed 
into  its  elements,  the  soul  corresponding  to  it  must  accom- 
pany it  into  an  answering  dissolution.  And  this,  indeed, 
Spinoza  in  one  sense  actually  affirms,  when  he  denies  to 
the  mind  any  power  of  retaining  consciousness  of  what 
has  befallen  it  in  life,  "  nisi  durante  corpore."  But  Spi- 
nozism  is  a  philosophy  full  of  surprises ;  and  our  calcula- 
tions of  what  must  belong  to  it  are  perpetually  baffled. 
The  imagination,  the  memory,  the  senses,  whatever  belongs 
to  inadequate  perception,  perish  necessarily  and  eternally  ; 
and  the  man  who  has  been  the  slave  of  his  inclinations, 
who  has  no  knowledge  of  God,  and  no  active  possession 
of  himself,  having  in  life  possessed  no  personality,  loses  in 
death  the  appearance  of  it  with  the  dissolution  of  the 
body. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  in  God  an  idea  expressing  the 
essence  of  the  mind,  united  to  the  mind  as  the  mind  is 


816  Spinoza. 

united  to  the  body,  and  thus  there  is  in  the  soul  something 
of  an  everlasting  nature  which  cannot  utterly  perish.  And 
here  Spinoza,  as  he  often  does  in  many  of  his  most  solemn 
conclusions,  deserts  for  a  moment  the  thread  of  his  demon- 
strations, and  appeals  to  the  consciousness.  In  spite  of 
our  non-recollection  of  what  passed  before  our  birth,  in 
spite  of  all  difficulties  from  the  dissolution  of  the  body, 
"  Nihilominus,"  he  says,  "  sentimus  experimurque  nos  agter- 
nos  esse.  Nam  mens  non  minus  res  illas  sentit  quas  in- 
telligendo  concipit,  quam  quas  in  memoria  habet.  Mentis 
enim  oculi  quibus  res  videt  observatque  sunt  ipsse  demon- 
strationes." 

This  perception,  immediately  revealed  to  the  mind,  falls 
into  easy  harmony  with  the  rest  of  the  system.  As  the 
mind  is  not  a  faculty,  but  an  act  or  acts,  —  not  a  power  of 
perception,  but  the  perception  itself,  in  its  high  union  with 
the  highest  object  (to  use  the  metaphysical  language  which 
Coleridge  has  made  popular  and  partially  intelligible),  the 
object  and  the  subject  become  one.  If  knowledge  be  fol- 
lowed as  it  ought  to  be  followed,  and  all  objects  of  knowl- 
edge be  regarded  in  their  relations  to  the  One  Absolute 
Being,  the  knowledge  of  particular  outward  things,  of 
Nature,  or  life,  or  history,  becomes,  in  fact,  knowledge  of 
God  ;  and  the  more  complete  or  adequate  such  knowledge, 
the  more  the  mind  is  raised  above  what  is  perishable  in  the 
phenomena  to  the  idea  or  law  which  lies  beyond  them..  It 
learns  to  dwell  exclusively  upon  the  eternal,  not  upon  the 
temporary ;  and  being  thus  occupied  with  the  everlasting 
laws,  and  its  activity  subsisting  in  its  perfect  union  with 
them,  it  contracts  in  itself  the  character  of  the  objects 
which  possess  it.  Thus  we  are  emancipated  from  the  con- 
ditions of  duration ;  we  are  liable  even  to  death  only  quate- 
nus  patimur,  as  we  are  passive  things  and  not  active  intel- 
ligences; and  the  more  we  possess  such  knowledge  and 
are  possessed  by  it,  the  more  entirely  the  passive  is  super- 
seded by  the  active  —  so  that  at  last  the  human  soul  may 


Spinoza.  317 

"  become  of  such  a  nature  that  the  portion  of  it  which  will 
perish  with  the  body  in  comparison  with  that  of  it  which 
shall  endure,  shall  be  insignificant  and  nidlius  momenti." 
(Eth.  v.  38.) 

Such  are  the  principal  features  of  a  philosophy,  the  in- 
fluence of  which  upon  Europe,  direct  and  indirect,  it  is 
not  easy  to  over-estimate.  The  account  of  it  is  far  from 
being  an  account  of  the  whole  of  Spinoza's  labors ;  his 
"Tractatus  Theologico-Politicus "  was  the  forerunner  of 
German  historical  criticism  ;  the  whole  of  which  has  been 
but  the  application  of  principles  laid  down  in  that  remark- 
able work.  But  this  is  not  a  subject  on  which,  upon  the 
present  occasion,  we  have  cared  to  enter.  We  have  de- 
signedly confined  ourselves  to  the  system  which  is  most 
associated  with  the  name  of  its  author.  It  is  this  which 
has  been  really  powerful,  which  has  stolen  over  the  minds 
even  of  thinkers  who  imagine  themselves  most  opposed  to 
it.  It  has  appeared  in  the  absolute  Pantheism  of  Schell- 
ing  and  Hegel,  in  the  Pantheistic  Christianity  of  Herder 
and  Schleiermacher.  Passing  into  practical  life  it  has 
formed  the  strong,  shrewd  judgment  of  Goethe,  while  again 
it  has  been  able  to  unite  with  the  theories  of  the  most  ex- 
treme materialism. 

It  lies  too,  perhaps  (and  here  its  influence  has  been  un- 
mixedly  good),  at  the  bottom  of  that  more  reverent  con- 
templation of  Nature  which  has  caused  the  success  of  our 
modern  landscape  painting,  which  inspired  Wordsworth's 
poetry,  and  which,  if  ever  physical  science  is  to  become 
an  instrument  of  intellectual  education,  must  first  be  in- 
fused into  the  lessons  of  Nature  ;  the  sense  of  that  "  some 
thing  "  interfused  in  the  material  world,  — 

"  Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man ;  — 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  which  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 


318  Spinoza. 

If  we  shrink  from  regarding  the  extended  unherse,  with 
Spinoza,  as  an  actual  manifestation  of  Almighty  God,  we  are 
unable  to  rest  in  the  mere  denial  that  it  is  this.  We  go  on 
to  ask  what  it  is,  and  we  are  obliged  to  conclude  thus  much 
at  least  of-  it,  that  every  smallest  being  was  once  a  thought 
in  his  mind  ;  and  in  the  study  of  what  He  has  made,  we  are 
really  and  truly  studying  a  revelation  of  himself. 

It  is  not  here,  it  is  not  on  the  physical,  it  is  rather  on 
the  moral  side,  that  the  stumbling-block  is  lying ;  in  that 
excuse  for  evil  and  for  evil  men  which  the  necessitarian 
theory  will  furnish,  disguise  it  in  what  fair-sounding  words 
we  will.  So  plain  this  is,  that  common-sense  people,  and 
especially  English  people,  cannot  bring  themselves  even  to 
consider  the  question  without  impatience,  and  turn  dis- 
dainfully and  angrily  from  a  theory  which  confuses  their 
instincts  of  right  and  wrong.  Although,  however,  error  on 
this  side  is  infinitely  less  mischievous  than  on  the  other, 
no  vehement  error  can  exist  in  this  world  with  impunity ; 
and  it  does  appear  that  in  our  common  view  of  these 
matters  we  have  closed  our  eyes  to  certain  grave  facts 
of  experience,  and  have  given  the  fatalist  a  vantage-ground 
of  real  truth  which  we  ought  to  have  considered  and  al- 
lowed. At  the  risk  of  .tecliousness  we  shall  enter  briefly 
into  this  unpromising  ground.  Life  and  the  necessities  of 
life  are  our  best  philosophers  if  we  will  only  listen  honestly 
to  what  they  say  to  us ;  and  dislike  the  lesson  as  we  may, 
it  is  cowardice  which  refuses  to  hear  it. 

The  popular  belief  is,  that  right  and  wrong  lie  before 
every  man,  and  that  he  is  free  to  choose  between  them,  and 
the  responsibility  of  choice  rests  with  himself.  The  fatal- 
ist's belief  is  that  every  man's  actions  are  determined  by 
causes  external  and  internal  over  which  he  has  no  power, 
leaving  no  room  for  any  moral  choice  whatever.  The  first 
is  contradicted  by  facts,  the  second  by  the  instinct  of  con- 
science. Even  Spinoza  allows  that  for  practical  purposes 
we  are  obliged  to  regard  the  future  as  contingent,  and  our- 


Spinoza.  319 

selves  as  able  to  influence  it ;  and  it  is  incredible  that  both 
our  inward  convictions  and  our  outward  conduct  should  be 
built  together  upon  a  falsehood.  But  if,  as  Butler  says, 
whatever  be  the  speculative  account  of  the  matter,  we  are 
practically  forced  to  regard  ourselves  as  free,  this  is  but 
half  the  truth,  for  it  may  be  equally  said  that  practically 
we  are  forced  to  regard  each  other  as  not  free ;  and  to 
make  allowance,  every  moment,  for  influences  for  which  we 
cannot  hold  each  other  personally  responsible.  If  not,  — 
if  every  person  of  sound  mind  (in  the  common  acceptation 
of  the  term)  be  equally  able  at  all  times  to  act  right  if 
only  he  will,  —  why  all  the  care  which  we  take  of  children  ? 
why  the  pains  to  keep  them  from  bad  society  ?  why  do  we 
so  anxiously  watch  their  disposition,  to  determine  the  edu- 
cation which  will  best  answer  to  it?  "Why  in  cases  of 
guilt  do  we  vary  our  moral  censure  according  to  the  oppor- 
tunities of  the  offender  ?  Why  do  we  find  excuses  for 
youth,  for  inexperience,  for  violent  natural  passion,  for  bad 
education,  bad  example  ?  Why,  except  that  we  feel 
that  all  these  things  do  affect  the  culpability  of  the  guilty 
person,  and  that  it  is  folly  and  inhumanity  to  disregard 
them  ?  But  what  we  act  upon  in  private  life  we  cannot 
acknowledge  in  our  ethical  theories,  and  while  our  conduct 
in  detail  is  humane  and  just,  we  have  been  contented  to 
gather  our  speculative  philosophy  out  of  the  broad  and 
coarse  generalizations  of  political  necessity.  In  the  swift 
haste  of  social  life  we  must  indeed  treat  men  as  we  find 
them.  We  have  no  time  to  make  allowances ;  and  the 
graduation  of  punishment  by  the  scale  of  guilt  is  a  mere 
impossibility.  A  thief  is  a  thief  in  the  law's  eye  though 
he  has  been  trained  from  his  cradle  in  the  kennels  of  St. 
Giles's ;  and  definite  penalties  must  be  attached  to  definite 
acts,  the  conditions  of  political  life  not  admitting  of  any 
other  method  of  dealing  with  them.  But  it  is  absurd  to 
argue  from  such  rude  necessity  that  each  act  therefore,  by 
whomsoever  committed,  is  of  specific  culpability.  The  act 


320  Spinoza. 

is  one  thing,  the  moral  guilt  is  another.  There  are  many 
cases  in  which,  as  Butler  again  allows,  if  we  trace  a  sin- 
ner's history  to  the  bottom,  the  guilt  attributable  to  himself 
appears  to  vanish  altogether. 

This  is  plain  matter  of  fact,  and  as  long  as  we  continue 
to  deny  or  ignore  it,  there  will  be  found  men  (not  bad  men, 
but  men  who  love  the  truth  as  much  as  ourselves)  who  will 
see  only  what  we  neglect,  and  will  insist  upon  it,  and  build 
their  systems  upon  it. 

And  again,  if  less  obvious,  yet  not  less  real,  are  those 
natural  tendencies  which  each  of  us  brings  with  him  into 
the  world,  —  which  we  did  not  make,  and  yet  which  almost 
as  much  determine  what  we  are  to  be,  as  the  properties  of 
the  seed  determine  the  tree  which  shall  grow  from  it.  Men 
are  self-willed,  or  violent,  or  obstinate,  or  weak,  or  gen- 
erous, or  affectionate  ;  there  is  as  large  difference  in  their 
dispositions  as  in  the  features  of  their  faces.  Duties  which 
are  easy  to  one,  another  finds  difficult  or  impossible.  It  is 
with  morals  as  it  is  with  art.  Two  children  are  taught  to 
draw  ;  one  learns  with  ease,  the  other  hardly  or  never.  In 
vain  the  master  will  show  him  what  to  do.  It  seems  so 
easy :  it  seems  as  if  he  had  only  to  will,  and  the  thing 
would  be  done ;  but  it  is  not  so.  Between  the  desire  and 
the  execution  lies  the  incapable  organ  which  only  wearily, 
and  after  long  labor,  imperfectly  accomplishes  what  is  re- 
quired of  it.  And  the  same,  to  a  certain  extent,  unless  we 
will  deny  the  patent  facts  of  experience,  holds  true  in  moral 
actions.  No  wonder,  therefore,  that  evaded  or  thrust  aside 
as  these  things  are  in  the  popular  beliefs,  as  soon  as  they 
are  recognized  in  their  full  reality  they  should  be  mistaken 
for  the  whole  truth,  and  the  free-will  theory  be  thrown 
aside  as  a  chimera. 

It  may  be  said,  and  it  often  is  said,  that  such  reasonings 
are  merely  sophistical  —  that  however  we  entangle  our- 
selves in  logic,  we  are  conscious  that  we  are  free ;  we  know 
—  we  are  as  sure  as  we  are  of  our  existence  —  that  we 


Spinoza*  321 

have  power  to  act  this  way  or  that  way,  exactly  as  we 
choose.  But  this  is  less  plain  than  it  seems ;  and  if  granted, 
it  proves  less  than  it  appears  to  prove.  It  may  be  true  that 
we  can  act  as  wre  choose,  but  can  we  choose  ?  Is  not  our 
choice  determined  for  us  ?  We  cannot  determine  from  the 
fact,  because  we  always  have  chosen  as  soon  as  we  act,  and 
we  cannot  replace  the  conditions  in  such  a  way  as  to  dis- 
cover whether  we  could  have  chosen  any  thing  else.  The 
stronger  motive  may  have  determined  our  volition  without 
our  perceiving  it ;  and  if  Ave  desire  to  prove  our  independ- 
ence of  motive,  by  showing  that  we  can  choose  something 
different  from  that  which  we  should  naturally  have  chosen, 
we  still  cannot  escape  from  the  circle,  this  very  desire  be- 
coming, as  Mr.  Hume  observes,  itself  a  motive.  Again, 
consciousness  of  the  possession  of  any  power  may  easily  be 
delusive  ;  we  can  properly  judge  what  our  powers  are  only 
by  what  they  have  actually  accomplished ;  we  know  what 
we  have  done,  and  we  may  infer  from  having  done  it  that 
our  power  was  equal  to  what  it  achieved.  But  it  is  easy 
for  us  to  overrate  our  strength  if  we  try  to  measure  our 
abilities  in  themselves.  A  man  who  can  leap  five  yards 
may  think  that  he  can  leap  six ;  yet  he  may  try  and  fail. 
A  man  who  can  write  prose  may  only  learn  that  he  cannot 
write  poetry  from  the  badness  of  the  verses  which  he  pro- 
duces. To  the  appeal  to  consciousness  of  power  there  is 
always  an  answer :  —  that  we  may  believe  ourselves  to 
possess  it,  but  that  experience  proves  that  we  may  be  de- 
ceived. 

There  is,  however,  another  group  of  feelings  which  can- 
not be  set  aside  in  this  way,  which  do  prove  that,  in  some 
sense  or  other,  in  some  degree  or  other,  we  are  the  authors 
of  our  own  actions.  It  is  one  of  the  clearest  of  all  in- 
ward phenomena,  that,  where  two  or  more  courses  involv- 
ing moral  issues  are  before  us,  whether  we  have  a  con- 
sciousness of  power  to  choose  between  them  or  not,  we 
have  a  consciousness  that  we  ought  to  choose  between 

21 


322  Spinoza. 

them  ;  a  sense  of  duty  —  on  Set  TOVTO  Trparrav  —  as  Aris- 
totle expresses  it,  which  we  cannot  shake  off.  Whatever 
this  consciousness  involves  (and  some  measure  of  freedom 
it  must  involve  or  it  is  nonsense),  the  feeling  exists  within 
us,  and  refuses  to  yield  before  all  the  batteries  of  logic.  It 
is  not  that  of  the  two  courses  we  know  that  one  is  in  the 
long  run  the  best,  and  the  other  more  immediately  tempt- 
ing. We  have  a  sense  of  obligation  irrespective  of  con- 
sequence, the  violation  of  which  is  followed  again  by  a 
sense  of  self-disapprobation,  of  censure,  of  blame.  In 
vain  will  Spinoza  tell  us  that  such  feelings,  incompatible  as 
they  are  with  the  theory  of  powerlessness,  are  mistakes 
arising  out  of  a  false  philosophy.  They  are  primary  facts 
of  sensation,  most  vivid  in  minds  of  most  vigorous  sen- 
sibility ;  and  although  they  may  be  extinguished  by  habitual 
profligacy,  or  possibly,  perhaps,  destroyed  by  logic,  the 
paralysis  of  the  conscience  is  no  more  a  proof  that  it  is  not 
a  real  power  of  perceiving  real  things,  than  blindness  is 
a  proof  that  sight  is  not  a  real  power.  The  perceptions 
of  worth  and  worthlessness  are  not  conclusions  of  reason- 
ing, but  immediate  sensations  like  those  of  seeing  and 
hearing ;  and  although,  like  the  other  senses,  they  may  be 
mistaken  sometimes  in  the  accounts  they  render  to  us,  the 
fact  of  the  existence  of  such  feelings  at  all  proves  that 
there  is  something  which  corresponds  to  them.  If  there 
be  any  such  things  as  '•'  true  ideas,"  or  clear,  distinct  per- 
ceptions at  all,  this  of  praise  and  blame  is  one  of  them, 
and  according  to  Spinoza's  own  rule  we  must  accept  what 
it  involves.  And  it  involves  that  somewhere  or  other  the 
influence  of  causes  ceases  to  operate,  and  that  some  degree 
of  power  there  is  in  men  of  self-determination,  by  the 
amount  of  which,  and  not  by  their  specific  actions,  moral 
merit  or  demerit  is  to  be  measured.  Speculative  diffi- 
culties remain  in  abundance.  It  will  be  said  in  a  case,  e.  g. 
of  moral  trial,  that  there  may  have  been  power  ;  but  was 
there  power  c»o>tyh  to  resist  the  temptation  ?  If  there 


Spinoza.  323 

ffas,  then  it  was  resisted.  If  there  was  not,  there  was 
not  responsibility.  We  must  answer  again  from  prac- 
tical instinct.  We  refuse  to  allow  men  to  be  considered 
all  equally  guilty  who  have  committed  the  same  faults; 
and  we  insist  that  their  actions  must  be  measured  against 
their  opportunities.  But  a  similar  conviction  assures  us 
that  there  is  somewhere  a  point  of  freedom.  Where 
that  point  is  —  where  other  influences  terminate,  and 
responsibility  begins  —  will  always  be  of  intricate  and 
often  impossible  solution.  But  if  there  be  such  a  point 
at  all,  it  is  fatal  to  necessitarianism,  and  man  is  what 
he  has  been  hitherto  supposed  to  be  —  an  exception  in 
the  order  of  Nature,  with  a  power  not  differing  in  de- 
gree but  differing  in  kind  from  those  of  other  creatures. 
Moral  life,  like  all  life,  is  a  mystery ;  and  as  to  anatom- 
ize the  body  will  not  reveal  the  secret  of  animation,  so 
with  the  actions  of  the  moral  man.  The  spiritual  life, 
which  alone  gives  them  meaning  and  being,  glides  away 
before  the  logical  dissecting  knife,  and  leaves  it  but  a 
corpse  to  work  upon. 


THE  DISSOLUTION  OF  THE  MONASTERIES.1 


To  be  entirely  just  in  our  estimate  of  other  ages  is  not 
difficult  —  it  is  impossible.  Even  what  is  passing  in  our 
presence  we  see  but  through  a  glass  darkly.  The  mind 
as  well  as  the  eye  adds  something  of  its  own,  before  an 
image,  even  of  the  clearest  object,  can  be  painted  upon  it. 

And  in  historical  inquiries,  the  most  instructed  think- 
ers have  but  a  limited  advantage  over  the  most  illiterate. 
Those  who  know  the  most,  approach  least  to  agreement. 
The  most  careful  investigations  are  diverging  roads  —  the 
further  men  travel  upon  them,  the  greater  the  interval  by 
which  they  are  divided.  In  the  eyes  of  David  Hume,  the 
history  of  the  Saxon  Princes  is  "  the  scuffling  of  kites  and 
crows."  Father  Newman  would  mortify  the  conceit  of  a 
degenerate  England  by  pointing  to  the  sixty  saints  and 
the  hundred  confessors  who  were  trained  in  her  royal 
palaces  for  the  Calendar  of  the  Blessed.  How  vast  a 
chasm  yawns  between  these  two  conceptions  of  the  same 
era !  Through  what  common  term  can  the  student  pass 
from  one  into  the  other  ? 

Or,  to  take  an  instance  yet  more  noticeable.  The  his- 
tory of  England  scarcely  interests  Mr.  Macaulay  before 
the  Revolution  of  the  seventeenth  century.  To  Lord 
John  Russell,  the  Reformation  was  the  first  outcome  from 
centuries  of  folly  and  ferocity ;  and  Mr.  Hallam's  more 
temperate  language  softens,  without  concealing,  a  similar 
conclusion.  These  writers  have  all  studied  what  they  de^ 
scribe.  Mr.  Carlyle  has  studied  the  same  subject  with 

1  From  Frascr's  Magazine^  1857. 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.           325 

power  at  least  equal  to  theirs,  and  to  him  the  .greatness  of 
English  character  was  waning  with  the  dawn  of  English 
literature ;  the  race  of  heroes  was  already  failing.  The 
era  of  action  was  yielding  before  the  era  of  speech. 

All  these  views  may  seem  to  ourselves  exaggerated ;  we 
may  have  settled  into  some  moderate  via  media,  or  have 
carved  out  our  own  ground  on  an  original  pattern  ;  but  if 
we  are  wise,  the  differences  in  other  men's  judgments  will 
teach  us  to  be  diffident.  The  more  distinctly  we  have 
made  history  bear  witness  in  favor  of  our  particular  opin- 
ions, the  more  we  have  multiplied  the  chances  against  the 
truth  of  our  own  theory. 

Again,  supposing  that  we  have  made  a  truce  with  "  opin- 
ions," properly  so  called ;  supposing  we  have  satisfied  our- 
selves that  it  is  idle  to  quarrel  upon  points  on  which  good 
men  differ,  and  that  it  is  better  to  attend  rather  to  what  we 
certainly  know ;  supposing  that,  either  from  superior  wis- 
dom, or  from  the  conceit  of  superior  wisdom,  we  have  re- 
solved that  we  will  look  for  human  perfection  neither 
exclusively  in  the  Old  World  nor  exclusively  in  the  New  — 
neither  among  Catholics  nor  Protestants,  among  Whigs  or 
Tories,  heathens  or  Christians  — -  that  we  have  laid  aside 
accidental  differences,  and  determined  to  recognize  only 
moral  distinctions,  to  love  moral  worth,  and  to  hate  moral 
evil,  wherever  we  find  them ;  — •  even  supposing  all  this,  we 
have  not  much  improved  our  position  —  we  cannot  leap 
from  our  shadow. 

Eras,  like  individuals,  differ  from  one  another  in  the 
species  of  virtue  which  they  encourage.  In  one  age,  we 
find  the  virtues  of  the  warrior ;  in  the  next,  of  the  saint. 
The  ascetic  and  the  soldier  in  their  turn  disappear ;  an  in- 
dustrial era  succeeds,  bringing  with  it  the  virtues  of  com- 
mon sense,  of  grace,  and  refinement.  There  is  the  virtue 
of  energy  and  command,  there  is  the  virtue  of  humility 
and  patient  suffering.  All  these  are  different,  and  all  are, 
or  may  be,  of  equal  moral  value  ;  yet  from  the  constitution 


326  The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries, 

of  our  minds,  we  are  so  framed  that  we  cannot  equally  aji* 
predate  all ;  we  sympathize  instinctively  with  the  person 
who  most  represents  our  own  ideal  —  with  the  period  when 
the  graces  which  most  harmonize  with  our  own  tempers 
have  been  especially  cultivated.  Further,  if  we  leave  out 
of  sight  these  refinements,  and  content  ourselves  with  the 
most  popular  conceptions  of  morality,  there  is  this  immeas- 
urable difficulty,  —  so  great,  yet  so  little  considered,  —  that 
goodness  is  positive  as  well  as  negative,  and  consists  in  the 
active  accomplishment  of  certain  things  which  we  are 
bound  to  do,  as  well  as  in  the  abstaining  from  things  which 
we  are  bound  not  to  do.  And  here  the  warp  and  woof 
vary  in  shade  and  pattern.  Many  a  man,  with  the  help  of 
circumstances,  may  pick  his  way  clear  through  life,  never 
having  violated  one  prohibitive  commandment,  and  yet  at 
last  be  fit  only  for  the  place  of  the  unprofitable  servant  — 
he  may  not  have  committed  either  sin  or  crime,  yet  never 
have  felt  the  pulsation  of  a  single  unselfish  emotion. 
Another,  meanwhile,  shall  have  been  hurried  by  an  impul- 
sive nature  into  fault  after  fault  —  shall  have  been  reckless, 
improvident,  perhaps  profligate,  yet  be  fitter  after  all  for 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  than  the  Pharisee  —  fitter,  because 
against  the  catalogue  of  faults  there  could  perhaps  be  set 
a  fairer  list  of  acts  of  comparative  generosity  and  self-for- 
getfulness  —  fitter,  because  to  those  who  love  much,  much 
is  forgiven.  Fielding  had  no  occasion  to  make  Blifil,  be- 
hind his  decent  coat,  a  traitor  and  a  hypocrite.  It  would 
have  been  enough  to  have  colored  him  in  and  out  alike  in 
the  steady  hues  of  selfishness,  afraid  of  offending  the 
upper  powers  as  he  was  afraid  of  offending  Allworthy  — 
not  from  any  love  for  what  was  good,  but  solely  because  it 
would  be  imprudent  —  because  the  pleasure  to  be  gained 
was  not  worth  the  risk  of  consequences.  Such  a  Blifil 
would  have  answered  the  novelist's  purpose  —  for  he  would 
have  remained  a  worse  man  in  the  estimation  of  some  of 
us  than  Tom  Jones. 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.  327 

So  the  truth  is  ;  but  unfortunately  it  is  only  where  accu- 
rate knowledge  is  stimulated  by  affection,  that  we  are  able 
to  feel  it.  Persons  who  live  beyond  our  own  circle,  and, 
still  more,  persons  who  have  lived  in  another  age,  receive 
what  is  called  justice,  not  charity  ;  and  justice  is  supposed  to 
consist  in  due  allotments  of  censure  for  each  special  act  of 
misconduct,  leaving  merit  unrecognized.  There  are  many 
reasons  for  this  harsh  method  of  judging.  We  must  de- 
cide of  men  by  what  we  know,  and  it  is  easier  to  know 
faults  than  to  know  virtues.  Faults  are  specific,  easily  de- 
scribed, easily  appreciated,  easily  remembered.  And  again 
there  is,  or  may  be,  hypocrisy  in  virtue ;  but  no  one  pretends 
to  vice  who  is  not  vicious.  The  bad  things  which  can  be 
proved  of  a  man  we  know  to  be  genuine.  He  was  a  spend- 
thrift, he  was  an  adulterer,  he  gambled,  he  equivocated. 
These  are  blots  positive,  unless  untrue,  and  when  they 
stand  alone,  tinge  the  whole  character. 

This  also  is  to  be  observed  in  historical  criticism.  All 
men  feel  a  necessity  of  being  on  some  terms  with  their 
conscience,  at  their  own  expense  or  at  another's.  If  they 
cannot  part  with  their  faults,  they  will  at  least  call  them  by 
their  right  name  when  they  meet  with  such  faults  else- 
where ;  and  thus,  when  they  find  accounts  of  deeds  of  vio- 
lence or  sensuality,  of  tyranny,  of  injustice  of  man  to  man, 
of  great  and  extensive  suffering,  or  any  of  those  other  mis- 
fortunes which  the  selfishness  of  men  has  at  various  times 
.occasioned,  they  will  vituperate  the  doers  of  such  things, 
and  the  age  which  has  permitted  them  to  be  done,  with  the 
full  emphasis  of  virtuous  indignation,  while  all  the  time 
they  are  themselves  doing  things  which  will  be  described, 
with  no  less  justice,  in  the  same  color,  by  an  equally  vir- 
tuous posterity. 

Historians  are  fond  of  recording  the  supposed  sufferings 
of  the  poor  in  the  days  of  serfdom  and  villanage  ;  yet  the 
records  of  the  strikes  of  the  last  ten  years,  when  told  by 
the  sufferers,  contain  pictures  no  less  fertile  in  tragedy. 


328  The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

We  speak  of  famines  and  plagues  under  the  Tudors  and 
Stuarts  ;  but  the  Irish  famine,  and  the  Irish  plague  of  1847, 
the  last  page  of  such  horrors  which  has  yet  been  turned 
over,  is  the  most  horrible  of  all.  We  can  conceive  a  de- 
scription of  England  during  the  year  which  has  just  closed 
over  us  (1856),  true  in  all  its  details,  containing  no  one 
statement  which  can  be  challenged,  no  single  exaggeration 
which  can  be  proved ;  and  this  description,  if  given  with- 
out the  correcting  traits,  shall  make  ages  to  come  marvel 
why  the  Cities  of  the  Plain  were  destroyed,  and  England 
was  allowed  to  survive.  The  frauds  of  trusted  men,  high 
in  power  and  high  in  supposed  religion ;  the  wholesale  poi- 
sonings ;  the  robberies ;  the  adulteration  of  food  —  nay,  of 
almost  every  thing  exposed  for  sale  —  the  cruel  usage  of 
women  —  children  murdered  for  the  burial  fees  —  life  and 
property  insecure  in  open  day  in  the  open  streets  —  splen- 
dor such  as  the  world  never  saw  before  upon  earth,  with 
vice  and  squalor  crouching  under  its  walls  —  let  all  this  be 
written  down  by  an  enemy,  or  let  it  be  ascertained  hereaf- 
ter by  the  investigation  of  a  posterity  which  desires  to 
judge  us  as  we  generally  have  judged  our  forefathers,  and 
few  years  will  show  darker  in  the  English  annals  than  the 
year  which  we  have  just  left  behind  us.  Yet  we  know,  in 
the  honesty  of  our  hearts,  how  unjust  such  a  picture  would 
be.  Our  future  advocate,  if  we  are  so  happy  as  to  find 
one,  may  not  be  able  to  disprove  a  single  article  in  the  in- 
dictment ;  and  yet  we  know  that,  as  the  world  goes,  he  will 
be  right  if  he  marks  the  year  with  a  white  stroke  —  as  one 
in  which,  on  the  whole,  the  moral  harvest  was  better  than 
an  average. 

Once  more  :  our  knowledge  of  any  man  is  always  inade- 
quate —  even  of  the  unit  which  each  of  us  calls  himself; 
and  the  first  condition  under  which  we  can  know  a  man  at 
all  is,  that  he  be  in  essentials  something  like  ourselves; 
that  our  own  experience  be  an  interpreter  which  shall  open 
the  secrets  of  his  experience ;  and  it  often  happens,  even 


T/ie  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.  329 

among  our  contemporaries,  that  we  are  altogether  baffled. 
The  Englishman  and  the  Italian  may  understand  each 
other's  speech,  but  the  language  of  each  other's  ideas  has 
still  to  be  learnt.  Our  long  failures  in  Ireland  have  risen 
from  a  radical  incongruity  of  character  which  has  divided 
the  Celt  from  the  Saxon.  And  again,  in  the  same  country 
the  Catholic  will  be  a  mystery  to  the  Protestant,  and  the 
Protestant  to  the  Catholic.  Their  intellects  have  been 
shaped  in  opposite  moulds ;  they  are  like  instruments 
which  cannot  be  played  in  concert.  In  the  same  way,  but 
in  a  far  higher  degree,  we  are  divided  from  the  generations 
which  have  preceded  us  on  this  planet  —  we  try  to  com- 
prehend a  Pericles  or  a  Cassar  —  an  image  rises  before  us 
which  we  seem  to  recognize  as  belonging  to  our  common 
humanity.  There  is  this  feature  which  is  familiar  to  us  — 
and  this  —  and  this.  We  are  full  of  hope ;  the  lineaments, 
one  by  one,  pass  into  clearness  ;  when  suddenly  the  figure 
becomes  enveloped  in  a  cloud  —  some  perplexity  crosses 
our  analysis,  baffling  it  utterly  ;  the  phantom  which  we  have 
evoked  dies  away  before  our  eyes,  scornfully  mocking  our 
incapacity  to  master  it. 

The  English  antecedent  to  the  Reformation  are  nearer 
to  us  than  Greeks  or  Romans ;  and  yet  there  is  a  large 
interval  between  the  baron  who  fought  at  Barnet  field,  and 
his  polished  descendant  in  a  modern  drawing-room.  The 
scale  of  appreciation  and  the  rule  of  judgment  —  the  habits, 
the  hopes,  the  fears,  the  emotions  —  have  utterly  changed. 

In  perusing  modern  histories,  the  present  writer  has  been 
struck  with  dumb  wonder  at  the  facility  with  which  men 
will  fill  in  chasms  in  their  information  with  conjecture ; 
will  guess  at  the  motives  which  have  prompted  actions  ; 
will  pass  their  censures,  as  if  all  secrets  of  the  past  lay 
out  on  an  open  scroll  before  them.  He  is  obliged  to  say 
for  himself  that,  wherever  he  has  been  fortunate  enough  to 
discover  authentic  explanations  of  English  historical  diffi- 
culties, it  is  rare  indeed  that  he  has  found  any  conjecture, 


330         The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

either  of  his  own  or  of  any  other  modern  writer,  confirmed, 
The  true  motive  has  almost  invariably  been  of  a  kind 
which  no  modern  experience  could  have  suggested. 

Thoughts  such  as  these  form  a  hesitating  prelude  to  an 
expression  of  opinion  on  a  controverted  question.  They 
will  serve,  however,  to  indicate  the  limits  within  which  the 
said  opinion  is  supposed  to  be  hazarded.  And  in  fact, 
neither  in  this  nor  in  any  historical  subject  is  the  conclu- 
sion so  clear  that  it  can  be  enunciated  in  a  definite  form. 
The  utmost  which  can  be  safely  hazarded  with  history  is  to 
relate  honestly  ascertained  facts,  with  only  such  indications 
of  a  judicial  sentence  upon  them  as  may  be  suggested  in 
the  form  in  which  the  story  is  arranged. 

Whether  the  monastic  bodies  of  England,  at  the  time 
of  their  dissolution,  were  really  in  that  condition  of  moral 
corruption  which  is  laid  to  their  charge  in  the  Act  of  Par- 
liament by  which  they  were  dissolved,  is  a  point  which  it 
seems  hopeless  to  argue.  Roman  Catholic,  and  indeed 
almost  all  English  writers  who  are  not  committed  to  an  un- 
favorable opinion  by  the  ultra-Protestantism  of  their  doc- 
trines, seem  to  have  agreed  of  late  years  that  the  accusa- 
tions, if  not  false,  were  enormously  exaggerated.  The  dis- 
solution, we  are  told,  was  a  predetermined  act  of  violence 
and  rapacity ;  and  when  the  reports  and  the  letters  of  the 
visitors  are  quoted  in  justification  of  the  Government,  the 
discussion  is  closed  with  the  dismissal  of  every  unfavora- 
ble witness  from  the  court,  as  venal,  corrupt,  calumnious  — 
in  fact,  as  a  suborned  liar.  Upon  these  terms  the  argu- 
ment is  easily  disposed  of;  and  if  it  were  not  that  truth  is 
in  all  matters  better  than  falsehood,  it  would  be  idle  to 
reopen  a  question  which  cannot  be  justly  dealt  with.  No 
evidence  can  affect  convictions  which  have  been  arrived 
at  without  evidence  —  and  why  should  we  attempt  a  task 
which  it  is  hopeless  to  accomplish  ?  It  seems  necessary, 
however,  to  reassert  the  actual  state  of  the  surviving  tes- 
timony from  time  to  time,  if  it  be  only  to  sustain  the  links 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          831 

of  the  old  traditions ;  and  the  present  paper  will  contain 
one  or  two  pictures  of  a  peculiar  kind,  exhibiting  the  life 
and  habits  of  those  institutions,  which  have  been  lately 
met  with  chiefly  among  the  imprinted  Records.  In  antici- 
pation of  any  possible  charge  of  unfairness  in  judging 
from  isolated  instances,  we  disclaim  simply  all  desire  to 
judge  —  all  wish  to  do  any  thing  beyond  relating  certain 
ascertained  stories.  Let  it  remain,  to  those  who  are  per- 
verse enough  to  insist  upon  it,  an  open  question  whether 
the  monasteries  were  more  corrupt  under  Henry  the 
Eighth  than  they  had  been  four  hundred  years  earlier. 
The  dissolution  would  have  been  equally  a  necessity ;  for 
no  reasonable  person  would  desire  that  bodies  of  men 
should  have  been  maintained  for  the  only  business  of  sing- 
ing masses,  when  the  efficacy  of  masses  was  no  longer  be- 
lieved. Our  present  desire  is  merely  this  —  to  satisfy  our- 
selves whether  the  Government,  in  discharging  a  duty 
which  could  not  be  dispensed  with,  condescended  to  false- 
hood in  seeking  a  vindication  for  themselves  which  they 
did  not  require ;  or  whether  they  had  cause  really  to  be- 
iieve  the  majority  of  the  monastic  bodies  to  be  as  they 
affirmed  —  whether,  that  is  to  say,  there  really  were  such 
cases  either  of  flagrant  immorality,  neglect  of  discipline, 
or  careless  waste  and  prodigality,  as  to  justify  the  general 
censure  which  was  pronounced  against  the  system  by  the 
Parliament  and  the  Privy  Council. 

Secure  in  the  supposed  completeness  with  which  Queen 
Mary's  agents  destroyed  the  Eecords  of  the  visitation  un- 
der her  father,  Roman  Catholic  writers  have  taken  refuge 
in  a  disdainful  denial ;  and  the  Anglicans,  who  for  the 
most  part,  while  contented  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  the  Refor- 
mation, detest  the  means  by  which  it  was  brought  about, 
have  taken  the  same  view.  Bishop  Latimer  tells  us  that, 
when  the  Report  of  the  visitors  of  the  abbeys  was  read  in 
the  Commons  House,  there  rose  from  all  sides  one  long 
cry  of  "  Down  with  them."  But  Bishop  Latimer,  in  the 


332         T/te  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

opinion  of  High  Churchmen,  is  not  to  be  believed.  Do  we 
produce  letters  of  the  visitors  themselves,  we  are  told  that 
they  are  the  slanders  prepared  to  justify  a  preconceived 
purpose  of  spoliation.  No  witness,  it  seems,  will  be  admit- 
ted unless  it  be  the  witness  of  a  friend.  Unless  some 
enemy  of  the  Reformation  can  be  found  to  confess  the 
crimes  which  made  the  Reformation  necessary,  the  crimes 
themselves  are  to  be  regarded  as  unproved.  This  is  a 
hard  condition.  Y\re  appeal  to  Wolsey.  Wolsey  com- 
menced the  suppression.  "Wolsey  first  made  public  the 
infamies  which  disgraced  the  Church ;  while,  notwith- 
standing, he  died  the  devoted  servant  of  the  Church. 
This  evidence  is  surely  admissible  ?  But  no :  Wolsey,  too, 
must  be  put  out  of  court.  Wolsey  was  a  courtier  and  a 
timeserver.  Wolsey  was  a  tyrant's  minion.  Wolsey  was 
—  in  short,  we  know  not  what  Wolsey  was,  or  what  he  was 
not.  Who  can  put  confidence  in  a  charlatan  ?  Behind 
the  bulwarks  of  such  objections,  the  champion  of  the 
abbeys  may  well  believe  himself  secure. 

And  yet,  unreasonable  though  these  demands  may  be, 
it  happens,  after  all,  that  we  are  able  partially  to  gratify 
them.  It  is  strange  that,  of  all  extant  accusations  against 
any  one  of  the  abbeys,  the  heaviest  is  from  a  quarter  which 
even  Lingard  himself  would  scarcely  call  suspicious.  No 
picture  left  us  by  Henry's  visitors  surpasses,  even  if  it 
equals,  a  description  of  the  condition  of  the  Abbey  of  St. 
Albans,  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century,  drawn 
by  Morton,  Henry  the  Seventh's  minister,  Cardinal  Arch- 
bishop, Legate  of  the  Apostolic  See,  in  a  letter  addressed 
by  him  to  the  Abbot  of  St.  Albans  himself. 

We  must  request  our  reader's  special  attention  for  the 
next  two  pages. 

In  the  year  1489,  Pope  Innocent  the  Eighth  —  moved 
with  the  enormous  stories  which  reached  his  ear  of  the 
corruption  of  the  houses  of  religion  in  England  —  granted 
R  commission  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  to  mako 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          333 

inquiries  whether  these  stories  were  true,  and  to  proceed 
to  correct  and  reform  as  might  seem  good  to  him.  The 
regular  clergy  were  exempt  from  episcopal  visitation,  ex- 
cept under  especial  directions  from  Rome.  The  occasion 
had  appeared  so  serious  as  to  make  extraordinary  inter- 
ference necessary. 

On  the  receipt  of  the  Papal  commission,  Cardinal  Mor- 
ton, among  other  letters,  wrote  the  following  letter :  — 

John  by  Divine  permission,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Primate 
of  all  England,  Legate  of  the  Apostolic  See,  to  William,  Abbot  of 
the  Monastery  of  St.  Albans,  greeting. 

We  have  received  certain  letters  under  lead,  the  copies  whereof 
we  herewith  send  you,  from  our  most  holy  Lord  and  Father  in 
Christ,  Innocent,  by  Divine  Providence  Pope,  the  eighth  of  that 
name.  We  therefore,  John,  the  Archbishop,  the  visitor,  reformer, 
inquisitor,  and  judge  therein  mentioned,  in  reverence  for  the 
Apostolic  See,  have  taken  upon  ourselves  the  burden  of  enforcing 
the  said  commission ;  and  have  determined  that  we  will  pi*oceed 
by,  and  according  to,  the  full  force,  tenor,  and  effect  of  the  same. 

And  it  has  come  to  our  ears,  being  at  once  publicly  notorious 
and  brought  before  us  upon  the  testimony  of  many  witnesses 
worthy  of  credit,  that  you,  the  abbot  aforementioned,  have  been 
of  long  time  noted  and  diffamed,  and  do  yet  continue  so  noted,  of 
simony,  of  usury,  of  dilapidation  and  waste  of  the  goods,  revenues, 
and  possessions  of  the  said  monastery,  and  of  certain  other  enor- 
mous crimes  and  excesses  hereafter  written.  In  the  rule,  custody, 
and  administration  of  the  goods,  spiritual  and  temporal,  of  the  said 
monastery,  you  are  so  remiss,  so  negligent,  so  prodigal,  that 
whereas  the  said  monastery  was  of  old  times  founded  and  endowed 
by  the  pious  devotion  of  illustrious  princes,  of  famous  memory, 
heretofore  kings  of  this  land,  the  most  noble  progenitors  of  our 
most  serene  Lord  and  King  that  now  is,  in  order  that  true  religion 
might  flourish  there,  that  the  name  of  the  Most  High,  in  whose 
honor  and  glory  it  was  instituted,  might  be  duly  celebrated 
there ; 

And  whereas,  in  days  heretofore,  the  regular  observance  of  the 
eaid  rule  was  greatly  regarded,  and  hospitality  was  diligently 
kept; 

Nevertheless,  for  no   little  time,  during   which  you  have  pre- 


33-i         The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

sided  in  the  same  monastery,  you  and  certain  of  your  fellow-monks 
and  brethren  (whose  blood,  it  is  feared,  through  your  neglect,  a 
severe  Judge  will  require  at  your  hand)  have  relaxed  the  measure 
and  form  of  religious  life ;  you  have  laid  aside  the  pleasant  yoke 
of  contemplation,  and  all  regular  observances  —  hospitality,  alms, 
and  those  other  offices  of  piety  which  of  old  time  were  exercised 
and  ministered  therein  have  decreased,  and  by  your  faults,  your 
carelessness,  your  neglect  and  deed,  do  daily  decrease  more  and 
more,  and  cease  to  be  regarded  —  the  pious  vows  of  the  founders 
are  defrauded  of  their  just  intent  —  the  ancient  rule  of  your 
order  is  deserted ;  and  not  a  few  of  your  fellow-monks  and  breth- 
ren, as  we  most  deeply  grieve  to  learn,  giving  themselves  over  to 
a  reprobate  mind,  laying  aside  the  fear  of  God,  do  lead  only  a 
life  of  lasciviousness  —  nay,  as  is  horrible  to  relate,  be  not  afraid 
to  defile  the  holy  places,  even  the  very  churches  of  God,  by  in- 
famous intercourse  with  nuns,  &c.,  &c. 

You  yourself,  moreover,  among  other  grave  enormities  and 
abominable  crimes  whereof  you  are  guilty,  and  for  which  you  are 
noted  and  diffamed,  have,  in  the  first  place,  admitted  a  certain 
married  woman,  named  Elena  Germyn,  who  has  separated  her- 
self without  just  cause  from  her  husband,  and  for  some  time  past 
has  lived  in  adultery  with  another  man,  to  be  a  nun  or  sister  in 
the  house  or  Priory  of  Bray,  lying,  as  you  pretend,  within  your 
jurisdiction.  You  have  next  appointed  the  same  woman  to  be 
prioress  of  the  said  house,  notwithstanding  that  her  said  husband 
was  living  at  the  time,  and  is  still  alive.  And  finally,  Father 
Thomas  Sudbury,  one  of  your  brother  monks,  publicly,  notori- 
ously, and  without  interference  or  punishment  from  you,  has 
associated,  and  still  associates,  with  this  woman  as  an  adulterer 
with  his  harlot. 

Moreover,  divers  other  of  your  brethren  and  fellow-monks  have 
resorted,  and  do  resort,  continually  to  her  and  other  women  at 
the  same  place,  as  to  a  public  brothel  or  receiving-house,  and 
have  received  no  correction  therefor. 

Nor  is  Bray  the  only  house  into  which  you  have  introduced  dis- 
order. At  the  nunnery  of  Sapwell,  which  you  also  contend  to  be 
under  your  jurisdiction,  you  change  the  prioresses  and  superiors 
again  and  again  at  your  own  will  and  caprice.  Here,  as  well  as 
at  Bray,  you  depose  those  who  are  good  and  religious ;  you  pro- 
mote to  the  highest  dignities  the  worthless  and  the  vicious.  Tho 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          335 

duties  of  the  order  are  cast  aside  ;  virtue  is  neglected ;  anl  by 
these  means  so  much  cost  and  extravagance  has  been  caused,  that 
to  provide  means  for  your  indulgence  you  have  introduced  certain 
of  your  brethren  to  preside  in  their  houses  under  the  name  of 
guardians,  when  in  fact  they  are  no  guardians,  but  thieves  and 
notorious  villains ;  and  with  their  help  you  have  caused  and  per- 
mitted the  goods  of  the  same  priories  to  be  dispensed,  or  to  speak 
more  truly  to  be  dissipated,  in  the  above-described  corruptions 
and  other  enormous  and  accursed  offenses.  Those  places  once 
religious  are  rendered  and  reputed  as  it  were  profane  and  impi^ 
ous ;  and  by  your  own  and  your  creatures'  conduct,  are  so  impov- 
erished as  to  be  reduced  to  the  verge  of  ruin. 

In  like  manner,  also,  you  have  dealt  with  certain  other  cells  of 
monks,  which  you  say  are  subject  to  you,  even  within  the  monas- 
tery of  the  glorious  proto-martyr  Alban  himself.  You  have  dilap- 
idated the  common  property ;  you  have  made  away  with  the 
jewels ;  the  copses,  the  woods,  the  underwood,  almost  all  the 
oaks,  and  other  forest  trees,  to  the  value  of  eight  thousand  marks 
and  more,  you  have  made  to  be  cut  down  without  distinction,  and 
they  have  by  you  been  sold  and  alienated.  The  brethren  of  the 
abbey,  some  of  whom,  as  is  reported,  are  given  over  to  all  the 
evil  things  of  the  world,  neglect  the  service  of  God  altogether. 
They  live  with  harlots  and  mistresses  publicly  and  continuously, 
within  the  precincts  of  the  monastery  and  without.  Some  of 
them,  who  are  covetous  of  honor  and  promotion,  and  desirous 
therefore  of  pleasing  your  cupidity,  have  stolen  and  made  away 
with  the  chalices  and  other  jewels  of  the  Church.  They  have 
even  sacrilegiously  extracted  the  precious  stones  from  the  very 
shrine  of  St.  Alban  ;  and  you  have  not  punished  these  men,  but 
have  rather  knowingly  supported  and  maintained  them.  If  any 
of  your  brethren  be  living  justly  and  religiously,  if  any  be  wise 
and  virtuous,  these  you  straightway  depress  and  hold  in  hatred 
.  .  .  You  .  .  . 

But  we  need  not  transcribe  further  this  overwhelming 
document  It  pursues  its  way  through  mire  and  filth  to  its 
most  lame  and  impotent  conclusion.  After  all  this,  the 
abbot  was  not  deposed ;  he  was  invited  merely  to  recon- 
sider his  doings,  and,  if  possible,  amend  them.  Such  was 
Church  discipline,  even  under  an  extraordinary  commis- 


336         The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

sion  from  Rome.  But  the  most  incorrigible  Anglican  will 
scarcely  question  the  truth  of  a  picture  drawn  by  such  a 
hand ;  and  it  must  be  added  that  this  one  unexceptionable 
indictment  lends  at  once  assured  credibility  to  the  reports 
which  were  presented  fifty  years  later,  on  the  general  visit- 
ation. There  is  no  longer  room  for  the  presumptive  ob- 
jection that  charges  so  revolting  could  not  be  true.  We 
see  that  in  their  worst  form  they  could  be  true,  and  the 
evidence  of  Legh  and  Leghton,  of  Rice  and  Bedyll,  as  it 
remains  in  their  letters  to  Cromwell,  must  be  shaken  in 
detail,  or  else  it  must  be  accepted  as  correct.  We  cannot 
dream  that  Archbishop  Morton  was  mistaken,  or  was  mis- 
led by  false  information.  St.  Albans  was  no  obscure  priory 
in  a  remote  and  thinly  peopled  county.  The  Abbot  of  St. 
Albans  was  a  peer  of  the  realm,  taking  precedence  of  bish- 
ops, living  in  the  full  glare  of  notoriety,  within  a  few  miles 
of  London.  The  archbishop  had  ample  means  of  ascer- 
taining the  truth  ;  and,  we  may  be  sure,  had  taken  care  to 
examine  his  ground  before  he  left  on  record  so  tremendous 
an  accusation.  This  story  is  true  —  as  true  as  it  is  pite- 
ous. We  will  pause  a  moment  over  it  before  we  pass  from 
this,  once  more  to  ask  our  passionate  Church  friends 
whether  still  they  will  persist  that  the  abbeys  were  no 
worse  under  the  Tudors  than  they  had  been  in  their  origin, 
under  the  Saxons,  or  under  the  first  Norman  and  Plantag- 
enet  kings.  We  refuse  to  believe  it.  The  abbeys  which 
towered  in  the  midst  of  the  English  towns,  the  houses  clus- 
tered at  their  feet  like  subjects  round  some  majestic  queen, 
were  images  indeed  of  the  civil  supremacy  which  the 
Church  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  asserted  for  itself;  but 
they  were  images  also  of  an  inner  spiritual  sublimity,  which 
had  won  the  homage  of  grateful  and  admiring  nations. 
The  heavenly  graces  had  once  descended  upon  the  monas- 
tic orders,  making  them  ministers  of  mercy,  patterns  of 
celestial  life,  breathing  witnesses  of  the  power  of  the  Spirit 
in  renewing  and  sanctifying  the  heart.  And  then  it  was 


Tlit,  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          337 

that  art  and  wealth  and  genius  poured  out  their  treasures 
to  raise  fitting  tabernacles  for  the  dwelling  of  so  divine  a 
soul.  Alike  in  the  village  and  the  city,  amongst  the  una- 
dorned walls  and  lowly  roofs  which  closed  in  the  humble 
dwellings  of  the  laity,  the  majestic  houses  of  the  Father  of 
mankind  and  of  his  especial  servants  rose  up  in  sovereign 
beauty.  And  ever  at  the  sacred  gates  sat  Mercy,  pouring 
out  relief  from  a  never-failing  store  to  the  poor  and  the 
suffering ;  ever  within  the  sacred  aisles  the  voices  of  holy 
men  were  pealing  heavenwards  in  intercession  for  the  sins 
of  mankind ;  and  such  blessed  influences  were  thought  to 
exhale  around  those  mysterious  precincts,  that  even  the 
poor  outcasts  of  society  —  the  debtor,  the  felon,  and  the 
outlaw  —  gathered  round  the  walls  as  the  sick  men  sought 
the  shadow  of  the  Apostle,  and  lay  there  sheltered  from  the 
avenging  hand,  till  their  sins  were  washed  from  off  their 
souls.  The  abbeys  of  the  Middle  Ages  floated  through 
the  storms  of  war  and  conquest,  like  the  ark  upon  the 
waves  of  the  flood :  in  the  midst  of  violence  remaining  invi- 
olate, through  the  awful  reverence  which  surrounded  them. 
The  abbeys,  as  Henry's  visitors  found  them,  were  as  little 
like  what  they  once  had  been  as  the  living  man  in  the 
pride  of  his  growth  is  like  the  corpse  \vkich  the  earth 
makes  haste  to  hide  forever. 

The  official  letters  which  reveal  the  condition  into  which 
the  monastic  establishments  had  degenerated,  are  chiefly 
in  the  Cotton  Library,  and  a  large  number  of  them  have 
been  published  by  the  Camden  Society.4  Besides  these, 
however,  there  are  in  the  Rolls  House  many  other  docu- 
ments which  confirm  and  complete  the  statements  of  the 
writers  of  those  letters.  There  is  a  part  of  what  seems  to 
have  been  a  digest  of  the  "  Black  Book  "  —  an  epitome  of 
iniquities,  under  the  title  of  the  "  Compendium  Comperto- 
rum/'  There  are  also  reports  from  private  persons,  private 
entreaties  for  inquiry,  depositions  of  monks  in  official  ex- 
aminations, and  other  similar  papers,  which,  in  many  in- 
22 


388          TJte  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

stances,  are  too  offensive  to  be  produced,  and  may  rest  in 
obscurity,  unless  contentious  persons  compel  us  to  bring 
them  forward.  Some  of  these,  however,  throw  curious 
light  on  the  habits  of  the  time,  and  on  the  collateral  disor- 
ders which  accompanied  the  more  gross  enormities.  They 
show  us,  too,  that  although  the  dark  tints  predominate,  the 
picture  was  not  wholly  black  ;  that  as  just  Lot  was  in  the 
midst  of  Sodom,  yet  was  unable  by  his  single  presence  to 
save  the  guilty  city  from  destruction,  so  in  the  latest  era  of 
monasticism  there  were  types  yet  lingering  of  an  older  and 
fairer  age,  who,  nevertheless,  were  not  delivered,  like  the 
patriarch,  but  perished  most  of  them  with  the  institution 
to  which  they  belonged.  The  hideous  exposure  is  not  un- 
tinted  with  fairer  lines ;  and  we  see  traits  here  and  there 
of  true  devotion,  mistaken  but  heroic. 

Of  these  documents  two  specimens  shall  be  given  in  this 
place,  one  of  either  kind ;  and  both,  so  far  as  we  know, 
new  to  modern  history.  The  first  is  so  singular,  that  we 
print  it  as  it  is  found  —  a  genuine  antique,  fished  up,  in 
perfect  preservation,  out  of  the  wreck  of  the  old  world. 

About  eight  miles  from  Ludlow,  in  the  county  of  Here- 
fordshire, once  stood  the  Abbey  of  Wigmore.  There  was 
Wigmore  Castle,  a  stronghold  of  the  Welsh  Marches,  now, 
we  believe,  a  modern,  well-conditioned  mansion  ;  and  Wig- 
more  Abbey,  of  which  we  do  not  hear  that  there  are  any 
remaining  traces.  Though  now  vanished,  however,  like  so 
many  of  its  kind,  the  house  was  three  hundred  years  ago 
in  vigorous  existence  ;  and  when  the  stir  commenced  for 
an  inquiry,  the  proceedings  of  the  abbot  of  this  place  gave 
occasion  to  a  memorial  which  stands  in  the  Rolls  collec- 
tion as  follows :  — 1 

Articles  to  be  objected  against  John  Smart,  Abbot  of  the  Mon- 
astery of  Wigmore,  in  the  county  of  Hereford,  to  be  exhibited  to 
the  Eight  Honorable  Lord  Thomas  Cromwell,  the  Lord  Privy 
Seal  and  Vicegerent  to  the  King's  Majesty. 

1  Rolls  House  "MS.,  MitceUiincous  Papers,  First  Serie-.    356. 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          339 

1.  The  said  abbot  is  to  be  accused  of  simony,  as  well  for  taking 
money  for  advocation  and  putations  of  benefices,  as  for  giving  of 
orders,  or  more  truly,  selling  them,  and  that  to  such  persons  which 
have  been  rejected  elsewhere,  and  of  little  learning  and  light  con- 
sideration. 

2.  The  said  abbot  hath  promoted  to  orders  many  scholars  when 
all  other  bishops  did  refrain  to  give  such  orders  on  account  of  cer- 
tain ordinances  devised  by  the  King's  Majesty  and  his  Council  for 
the  common  weal  of  this  realm.     Then  resorted  to  the  said  abbot 
scholars  out  of  all  parts,  whom  he  would  promote  to  orders  by 
sixty  at  a  time,  and  sometimes  more,  and  otherwhiles  less.     And 
sometimes  the  said  abbot  would  give  orders  by  night  within  his 
chamber,  and  otherwise  in  the  church  early  in  the  morning,  and 
now  and  then  at  a  chapel  out  of  the  abbey.     So  that  there  be 
many  unlearned  and  light  priests  made  by  the  said  abbot;  and  in 
the  diocese  of  Llandaff,  and  in  the  places  aforenamed  —  a  thou- 
sand, as  it  is  esteemed,  by  the  space  of  this  seven  years  he  hath 
made  priests,  and  received  not  so  little  money  of  them  as  a  thou- 
sand pounds  for  their  orders. 

3.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  now  of  late,  when  he  could  not  be 
suffered  to  give  general  orders,  for  the  most  part  doth  give  orders 
by  pretense  of  dispensation  ;   and  by  that  color  he   promoteth 
them  to  orders  by  two  and  three,  and  takes  much  money  of  them, 
both  for  their  orders  and  for  to  purchase  their  dispensations  after 
the  time  he  hath  promoted  them  to  their  orders. 

4.  Item,  the  said  abbot  hath  hurt  and  dismayed  his  tenants  by 
putting  them  from  their  leases,  and  by  inclosing  their  commons 
from  them,  and  selling  and  utter  wasting  of  the  woods  that  were 
wont  to  relieve  and  succor  them. 

5.  Item,  the  said  abbot  hath  sold  corradyes,  to  the  damage  of 
the  said  monastery. 

6.  Itern,  the  said  abbot  hath  alienate  and  sold  the  jewels  and 
plate  of  the  monastery,  to  the  value  of  five  hundred  marks,  to 
purchase  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  his  bulls  to  be  a  bishop,  and  to 
annex  the  said  abbey  to  his  bishopric,  to  that  intent  that  he  should 
not  for  his  misdeeds  be  punished,  or  deprived  from  his  said  abbey. 

7.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot,  long  after  that  other  bishops  had 
renounced  the  Bishop  of  Home,  and  professed  them  to  the  King's 
Majesty,  did  use,  but  more  verily  usurped,  the  office  of  a  bishop 
by  virtue  of  his  first  bulls  purchased  from  Rome,  till  now  of  late, 
as  it  will  appear  by  the  date  of  his  confirmation,  if  he  have  any. 


340  The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

8.  Item,  that  he  the  said  abbot  hath  lived  viciously,  and  kept  to 
concubines  divers  and  many  women  that  is  openly  known. 

9.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  doth  yet  continue  his  vicious  living, 
as  it  is  known,  openly. 

10.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  hath  spent  and  wasted  much  of 
•the  goods  of  the  said  monastery  upon  the  foresaid  women. 

11.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  is  malicious  and  very  wrathful,  not 
regarding  what  he  saith  or  doeth  in  his  fury  or  anger. 

12.  Item,  that  one  Richard  Gyles  bought  of  the  abbot  and  con- 
vent of  Wigmore  a  corradye,  and  a  chamber  for  him  and  his  wife 
for  term  of  their  lives ;  and  when  the  said   Richard   Gyles  was 
aged  and  was  very  weak,  he  disposed  his  goods,  and  made  execu- 
tors to  execute  his  will.     And  when  the  said  abbot  now  being 

perceived  that  the  said  Richard  Gyles  was  rich,  and  had  not 

bequested  so  much  of  his  goods  to  him  as  he  would  have  had,  the 
said  abbot  then  came  to  the  chamber  of  the  said  Richard  Gyles, 
and  put  out  thence  all  his  friends  and  kinsfolk  that  kept  him  in  his 
sickness ;  and  then  the  said  abbot  set  his  brother  and  other  of  his 
servants  to  keep  the  sick  man ;  and  the  night  next  coming  after 
the  said  Richard  Gyles's  cofTer  was  broken,  and  thence  taken  all 
that  was  in  the  same,  to  the  value  of  forty  marks ;  and  long  after 
the  said  abbot  confessed,  before  the  executors  of  the  said  Richard 
Gyles,  that  it  was  his  deed. 

13.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot,  after  he  had  taken  away  the 
goods  of  the  said  Richard  Gyles,  used  daily  to  reprove  and  check 
the  said  Richard  Gyles,  and  inquire  of  him  where  was  more  of  his 
coin  and  money  :  and  at  the  last  the  said  abbot  thought  he  lived 
too  long,  and  made  the  sick  man,  after  much  sorry  keeping,  to  be 
taken  from  his  feather-bed,  and  laid  upon  a  cold  mattress,  and 
kept  his  friends  from  him  to  his  death. 

15.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  consented  to  the  death  and  mur- 
dering of  one  John  Tichkill,  that  was  slain  at  his  procuring,  at  the 
said  monastery,  by  Sir  Richard  Cubley,  canon  and  chaplain  to  the 
said  abbot ;  which  canon  is  and  ever  hath  been  since  that  time 
chief  of  the  said  abbot's  council ;  and  is  supported  to  carry  cross- 
bowes,  and  to  go  whither  he  lusteth  at  any  time,  to  fishing  and 
hunting  in  the  king's  forests,  parks,  and  chases ;   but  little  or 
nothing  serving  the  quire,  as  other  brethren  do,  neither  corrected 
ef  the  abbot  for  any  trespass  he  uoth  commit 

16.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  hath  been  perjured  oft,  as  is  tobt 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          841 

proved  and  is  proved  ;  and  as  it  is  supposed,  did  not  make  a  truo 
inventory  of  the  goods,  chattels,  and  jewels  of  his  monastery  to 
the  King's  Majesty  and  his  Council. 

17.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  hath  infringed   all  the  king's 
injunctions  which  were  given  him  by  Doctor  Cave  to  observe  and 
keep ;   and  when  he  was  denounced  in  pleno  capitulo  to  have 
broken  the  same,  he  would  have  put  in  prison  the  brother  as  did 
denounce  him  to  have  broken  the  same  injunctions,  save  that  he 
was  let  by  the  convent  there. 

18.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  hath  openly  preached  against  the 
doctrine  of  Christ,  saying  he  ought  not  to  love  his  enemy,  but  as 
he  loves  the  devil ;  and  that  he  should  love  his  enemy's  soul,  but 
not  his  body. 

19.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  hath  taken  but  small  regard  to 
the  good-living  of  his  household. 

20.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  hath  had  and  hath  yet  a  special 
favor  to  misdoers  and  manquellers,  thieves,  deceivers  of  their 
neighbors,  and  by  them  [is]  most  ruled  and  counseled. 

21.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  hath  granted  leases  of  farms  and 
advocations  first  to  one  man,  and  took  his  fine,  and  also  hath 
granted  the  same  lease  to  another  man  for  more  money ;  and  then 
would  make  to  the  last  taker  a  lease  or  writing,  with  an  antedate 
of  the  first  lease,  which  hath  bred  great  dissension  among  gen- 
tlemen, —  as  Master  Blunt  and  Master  Moysey,  and  other  takers 
of  such  leases,  —  and  that  often. 

22.  Item,  the  said  abbot  having  the  contrepaynes  of  leases  in 
his  keeping,  hath,  for  money,  rased  out  the  number  of  years 
mentioned  in  the  said  leases,  and  writ  a  fresh  number  in  the  for- 
mer taker's  lease,  and  in  the  contrepayne  thereof,  to  the  intent  to 
defraud  the  taker  or  buyer  of  the  residue  of  such  leases,  of  whom 
he  hath  received  the  money. 

23.  Item,  the  said  abbot  hath  not,  according  to  the  foundation 
of  his  monastery,  admitted  freely  tenants  into  certain  alms-houses 
belonging  to  the  said  monastery ;  but  of  them  he  hath  taken  large 
fines,  and  some  of  them  he  hath  put  away  that  would  not  give  him 
fines ;  whither  poor,  aged,  and  impotent  people  were  wont  to  be 
freely  admitted,  and  [to]  receive  the  founder's  alms  that  of  the 
old  customs  [were]  limited   to   the  same  —  which  alms   is  also 
diminished  by  the  said  abbot. 

24.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  did  not  deliver  the  bulls  of  bis 


342         The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

bishopric,  that  he  purchased  from  Rome,  to  our  sovereign  lord  the 
king's  council  till  long  after  the  time  he  had  delivered  and  exhib- 
ited the  bulls  of  his  monastery  to  them. 

25.  Item,  that  the  said  abbot  hath  detained  and  yet  doth  detain 
servants'  wages  ;   and  often  when  the  said  servants  hath  asked 
their  wages,  the  said  abbot  hath  put  them  into  the  stocks,  and  beat 
them. 

26.  Item,  the  said  abbot,  in  times  past.  hath,  had  a  great  devo- 
tion to  ride  to  Llangarvan,  in  Wales,  upon  Lammas-day,  to  receive 
pardon  there ;  and  on  the  even  he  would  visit  one  Mary  Hawlc 
an  old  acquaintance  of  his,  at  the  Welsh  Poole,  and  on  the  morrow 
ride  to  the  forcsaid  Llangarvan,  to  be  confessed  and  absolved,  and 
the  same  night  return  to  company  with  the  said  Mary  Hawle,  at 
the  Welsh  Poole  aforesaid,  and  Kateryn,  the  said  Mary  Hawle  her 
first  daughter,  whom  the  said  abbot  long  hath  kept  to  concubine, 
and  had  children  by  her,  that  he  lately  married  at  Ludlow.     And 
[there  be]  others  that  have  been  taken  out  of  his  chamber  and 
put  in  the  stocks  within  the  said  abbey,  and  others  that  have  com- 
plained upon  him  to  the  king's  council  of  the  Marches  of  Wales ; 
and  the  woman  that  dashed  out  his  teeth,  that  he  would  have  had 
by  violence,  I  will  not  name  now,  nor  other  men's  wives,  lest  it 
would  offend  your  good  lordship  to  read  or  hear  the  same. 

27.  Item,  the  said  abbot  doth  daily  embezzle,  sell,  and  convey 
the  goods  and  chattels,  and  jewels  of  the  said  monastery,  having 
no  need  so  to  do :  for  it  is  thought  that  he  hath  a  thousand  marks 
or  two  thousand  lying  by  him  that  he  hath  gotten  by  selling  of 
orders,  and  the  jewels  and  plate  of  the  monastery  and  corradyes  ; 
and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  he  will  alienate  all  the  rest,  unless  your 
good  lordship  speedily  make  redress  and  provision  to  let  the  same. 

28.  Item,  the  said  abbot  was  accustomed  yearly  to  preach  at 
Leyntwarden  on  the  Festival  of  the  Nativity  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
where  and  when  the  people  were  wont  to  offer  to  an  image  there, 
and  to  the  same  the  said  abbot  in  his  sermons  would  exhort  them 
and  encourage  them.    But  now  the  oblations  be  decayed,  the  abbot, 
espying  the  image  then  to  have  a  cote  of  silver  plate  and  gilt,  hath 
taken  away  of  his  own  authority  the  said  image,  and  the  plate 
turned  to  his  own  use  ;  and  left  his  preaching  there,  saying  it  is 
no  manner  of  profit  to  any  man,  and  the  plate  that  was  about  the 
eaid  image  was  named  to  be  worth  forty  pounds. 

29.  Item,  the  said  abbot  hath  ever  nourished  enmity  and  dia« 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          343 

cord  among  his  brethren  ;  and  hath  not  encouraged  them  to  learn 
the  laws  and  the  mystery  of  Christ.  But  he  that  least  knew  was 
most  cherished  by  him ;  and  he  hath  been  highly  displeased  and 
[hath]  disdained  when  his  brothers  would  say  that  "it  is  God's 
precept  and  doctrine  that  ye  ought  to  prefer  before  your  ceremo- 
nies and  vain  constitutions."  This  saying  was  high  disobedient, 
and  should  be  grievously  punished;  when  that  lying,  obloquy, 
(lattery,  ignorance,  derision,  contumely,  disorder,  great  swearing, 
drinking,  hypocrisy,  fraud,  superstition,  deceit,  conspiracy  to 
wrong  their  neighbor,  and  other  of  that  kind,  was  had  in  special 
favor  and  regard.  Laud  and  praise  be  to  God  that  hath  sent  us 
the  true  knowledge.  Honor  and  long  prosperity  to  our  sov- 
ereign lord  and  his  noble  council,  that  teaches  to  advance  the  same. 
Amen. 

By  John  Lee,  your  faithful  bedeman,  and  canon  of  the  said 
Monastery  of  Wigmorc. 

Postscript.  —  My  good  lord,  there  is  in  the  said  abbey  a  cross  of 
fine  gold  and  precious  stones,  whereof  one  diamond  was  esteemed 
by  Doctor  Booth,  Bishop  of  Hereford,  worth  a  hundred  marks. 
In  that  cross  is  inclosed  a  piece  of  wood,  named  to  be  of  the  cross 
that  Christ  died  upon,  and  to  the  same  hath  been  offering.  And 
when  it  should  be  brought  down  to  the  church  from  the  treasury, 
it  was  brought  down  with  lights,  and  like  reverence  as  should  have 
been  done  to  Christ  himself.  I  fear  lest  the  abbot  upon  Sunday 
next,  when  he  may  enter  the  treasury,  will  take  away  the  said 
cross  and  break  it,  or  turn  it  to  his  own  use,  with  many  other 
precious  jewels  that  be  there. 

All  these  articles  afore  written  be  true  as  to  the  substance  and 
true  meaning  of  them,  though  peradventure  for  haste  and  lack  of 
counsel,  some  words  be  set  amiss  or  out  of  their  place.  That  I 
will  be  ready  to  prove  forasmuch  as  lies  in  me,  when  it  shall  like 
your  honorable  lordship  to  direct  your  commission  to  men  (or 
any  man)  that  will  be  indifferent  and  not  corrupt  to  sit  upon  the 
same,  at  the  said  abbey,  where  the  witnesses  and  proofs  br  most 
rea3y  and  the  truth  is  best  known,  or  at  any  other  place  where 
it  shall  be  thought  most  convenient  by  your  high  discretion  and 
authority. 

The  statutes  of  Provisors,  commonly  called  Prasmunire 
statutes,  which  forbade  all  purchases  of  bulls  from  Rome 


S44  The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

under  penalty  of  outlawry,  have  been  usually  considered 
in  the  highest  degree  oppressive ;  and  more  particularly 
the  public  censure  has  fallen  upon  the  last  application  of 
those  statutes,  when,  on  Wolsey's  fall,  the  whole  body  of 
the  clergy  were  laid  under  a  praemunire,  and  only  obtained 
pardon  on  payment  of  a  serious  fine.  Let  no  one  regret 
that  he  has  learnt  to  be  tolerant  to  Roman  Catholics  as  the 
nineteenth  century  knows  them.  But  it  is  a  spurious 
charity  which,  to  remedy  a  modern  injustice,  hastens  to  its 
opposite  ;  and  when  philosophic  historians  indulge  in  loose 
invective  against  the  statesmen  of  the  Reformation,  they 
show  themselves  unfit  to  be  trusted  with  the  custody  of  our 
national  annals.  The  Acts  of  Parliament  speak  plainly  of 
the  enormous  abuses  which  had  grown  up  under  these 
bulls.  Yet  even  the  emphatic  language  of  the  statutes 
scarcely  prepares  us  to  find  an  abbot  able  to  purchase  with 
jewels  stolen  from  his  own  convent  a  faculty  to  confer  holy 
orders,  though  he  had  never  been  consecrated  bishop,  and 
to  make  a  thousand  pounds  by  selling  the  exercise  of  his 
privileges.  This  is  the  most  flagrant  case  which  has  fallen 
under  the  eyes  of  the  present  writer.  Yet  it  is  but  a  choice 
specimen  out  of  many.  He  was  taught  to  believe,  like 
other  modern  students  of  history,  that  the  papal  dispensa- 
tions for  immorality,  of  which  we  read  in  Fox  and  other 
Protestant  writers,  were  calumnies,  but  he  has  been  forced 
against  his  will  to  perceive  that  the  supposed  calumnies 
were  but  the  plain  truth ;  he  has  found  among  the  records 
—  for  one  thing,  a  list  of  more  than  twenty  clergy  in  one 
diocese  who  had  obtained  licenses  to  keep  concubines.2 
After  some  experience,  he  advises  all  persons  who  are 
anxious  to  understand  the  English  Reformation  to  place 
implicit  confidence  in  the  Statute  Book.  Every  fresh 
record  which  is  brought  to  light  is  a  fresh  evidence  in 
Us  favor.  In  the  fluctuations  of  the  conflict  there  were 
parliaments,  as  there  were  princes,  of  opposing  sentiment*  • 
*  Tanner  MS.  105.  Bodleian  Library,  Oxford. 


T/ie  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          345 

and  measures  were  passed,  amended,  repealed,  or  cen- 
sured, as  Protestants  and  Catholics  came  alternately  into 
power.  But  whatever  were  the  differences  of  opinion,  the 
facts  on  either  side  which  are  stated  in  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment may  be  uniformly  trusted.  Even  in  the  attainders 
for  treason  and  heresy  we  admire  the  truthfulness  of  the 
details  of  the  indictments,  although  we  deplore  the  preju- 
dice which  at  times  could  make  a  crime  of  virtue. 

We  pass  on  to  the  next  picture.  Equal  justice,  or  some 
attempt  at  it,  was  promised,  and  we  shall  perhaps  part  from 
the  friends  of  the  monasteries  on  better  terms  than  they 
believe.  At  least>  we  shall  add  to  our  own  history  and  to 
the  Catholic  martyrology  a  story  of  genuine  interest. 

We  have  many  accounts  of  the  abbeys  at  the  time  of 
their  actual  dissolution.  The  resistance  or  acquiescence 
of  superiors,  the  dismissals  of  the  brethren,  the  sale  of  the 
property,  the  destruction  of  relics,  &c.,  are  all  described. 
We  know  how  the  windows  were  taken  out,  how  the  glass 
was  appropriated,  how  the  "melter"  accompanied  the  visi- 
tors to  run  the  lead  upon  the  roofs  and  the  metal  of  the  bells 
into  portable  forms.  We  see  the  pensioned  regulars  filing 
out  reluctantly,  or  exulting  in  their  deliverance,  discharged 
from  their  vows,  furnished  each  with  his  "  secular  apparel," 
and  his  purse  of  money,  to  begin  the  world  as  he  might. 
These  scenes  have  long  been  partially  known,  and  they 
were  rarely  attended  with  any  thing  remarkable.  At  the 
time  of  the  suppression,  the  discipline  of  several  years  had 
broken  down  opposition,  and  prepared  the  way  for  the 
catastrophe.  The  end  came  at  last,  but  as  an  issue  which 
had  been  long  foreseen. 

We  have  sought  in  vain,  however,  for  a  glimpse  into  the 
interior  of  the  houses  at  the  first  intimation  of  what  was 
coming  —  more  especially  when  the  great  blow  was  struck 
which  severed  England  from  obedience  to  Rome,  and  as- 
serted the  independence  of  the  Anglican  Church.  Then, 
virtually,  the  fate  of  the  monasteries  was  decided.  As  soon 


846  The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

as  the  supremacy  was  vested  in  the  Crown,  inquiry  into 
their  condition  could  no  longer  be  escaped  or  delayed ;  and 
then,  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  country,  there 
must  have  been  rare  dismay.  The  account  of  the  London 
Carthusians  is  indeed  known  to  us,  because  they  chose  to 
die  rather  than  yield  submission  where  their  consciences 
forbade  them ;  and  their  isolated  heroism  has  served  to  dis- 
tinguish their  memories.  The  pope,  as  head  of  the  Uni- 
versal Church,  claimed  the  power  of  absolving  subjects 
from  their  allegiance  to  their  king.  He  deposed  Henry. 
He  called  on  foreign  princes  to  enforce  his  sentence  ;  and, 
on  pain  of  excommunication,  commanded  the  native  English 
to  rise  in  rebellion.  The  king,  in  self-defense,  was  com- 
pelled to  require  his  subjects  to  disclaim  all  sympathy  with 
these  pretensions,  and  to  recognize  no  higher  authority, 
spiritual  or  secular,  than  himself  within  his  own  dominions. 
The  regular  clergy  throughout  the  country  were  on  the 
pope's  side,  secretly  or  openly.  The  Charterhouse  monks, 
however,  alone  of  all  the  order,  had  the  courage  to  declare 
their  convictions,  and  to  suffer  for  them.  Of  the  rest,  we 
only  perceive  that  they  at  last  submitted  ;  and  since  there 
was  no  uncertainty  as  to  their  real  feelings,  we  have  been 
disposed  to  judge  them  hardly  as  cowards.  Yet  we  who 
have  never  been  tried,  should  perhaps  be  cautious  in  our 
censures.  It  is  possible  to  hold  an  opinion  quite  honestly, 
and  yet  to  hesitate  about  dying  for  it.  We  consider  our- 
selves, at  the  present  day,  persuaded  honestly  of  many 
things  ;  yet  which  of  them  should  we  refuse  to  relinquish 
if  the  scaffold  were  the  alternative  —  or  at  least  seem  to 
relinquish,  under  silent  protest  ? 

And  yet,  in  the  details  of  the  struggle  at  the  Charter- 
house, we  see  the  forms  of  mental  trial  which  must  have 
repeated  themselves  among  all  bodies  of  the  clergy  wher- 
ever there  was  seriousness  of  conviction.  If  the  majority 
of  the  monks  were  vicious  and  sensual,  there  was  still  a 
large  minority  laboring  to  be  true  to  their  vows;  and 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          347 

when  one  entire  convent  was  capable  of  sustained  resist- 
ance, there  must  have  been  many  where  there  was  only 
just  too  little  virtue  for  the  emergency  —  where  the  con- 
flict between  interest  and  conscience  was  equally  genuine, 
though  it  ended  the  other  way.  Scenes  of  bitter  misery 
there  must  have  been  —  of  passionate  emotion  wrestling 
ineffectually  with  the  iron  resolution  of  the  Government : 
and  the  faults  of  the  Catholic  party  weigh  so  heavily 
against  them  in  the  course  and  progress  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, that  we  cannot  willingly  lose  the  few  countervailing 
tints  which  soften  the  darkness  of  their  conditions. 

Nevertheless,  for  any  authentic  account  of  the  abbeys  at 
this  crisis,  we  have  hitherto  been  left  to  our  imagination. 
A  stern  and  busy  administration  had  little  leisure  to  pre- 
serve records  of  sentimental  struggles  which  led  to  nothing. 
The  Catholics  did  not  care  to -keep  alive  the  recollection 
of  a  conflict  in  which,  even  though  with  difficulty,  the 
Church  was  defeated.  A  rare  accident  only  could  have 
brought  down  to  us  any  fragment  of  a  transaction  which 
no  one  had  an  interest  in  remembering.  That  such  an 
accident  has  really  occurred,  we  may  consider  as  unusually 
fortunate.  The  story  in  question  concerns  the  Abbey  of 
TVoburn,  and  is  as  follows  :  — 

At  "Woburn,  as  in  many  other  religious  houses,  there 
were  representatives  of  both  the  factions  which  divided  the 
country ;  perhaps  we  should  say  of  three  —  the  sincere 
Catholics,  the  Indifferentists,  and  the  Protestants.  These 
last,  so  long  as  Wolsey  was  in  power,  had  been  frightened 
into  silence,  and  with  difficulty  had  been  able  to  save 
themselves  from  extreme  penalties.  No  sooner,  however, 
had  Wolsey  fallen,  and  the  battle  commenced  with  the 
papacy,  than  the  tables  turned,  the  persecuted  became  per- 
secutors —  or  at  least  threw  off  their  disguise  —  and  were 
strengthened  with  the  support  of  the  large  class  who  cared 
only  to  keep  on  the  winning  side.  The  mysteries  of  the 
faith  came  to  be  disputed  at  the  public  tables ;  the  refec- 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

tones  rang  with  polemics ;  the  sacred  silence  of  the  dor- 
mitories was  broken  for  the  first  time  by  lawless  specula- 
tion. The  orthodox  might  have  appealed  to  the  Govern- 
ment :  heresy  was  still  forbidden  by  law,  and,  if  detected, 
•was  still  punished  by  the  stake.  But  the  orthodox  among 
the  regular  clergy  adhered  to  the  pope  as  well  as  to  the 
faith,  and  abhorred  the  sacrilege  of  the  •  Parliament  as 
deeply  as  the  new  opinions  of  the  Keformers.  Instead  of 
calling  in  the  help  of  the  law,  they  muttered  treason 
in  secret ;  and  the  Reformers,  confident  in  the  neces- 
sities of  the  times,  sent  reports  to  London  of  their 
arguments  and  conversations.  The  authorities  in  the 
abbey  were  accused  of  disaffection ;  and  a  commission  of 
inquiry  was  sent  down  towards  the  end  of  the  spring  of 
1536,  to  investigate.  The  depositions  taken  on  this  occa- 
sion are  still  preserved ;  and  with  the  help  of  them,  we 
can  leap  over  three  centuries  of  time,  and  hear  the  last 
echoes  of  the  old  monastic  life  in  Woburn  Abbey  dying 
away  in  discord. 

"Where  party  feeling  was  running  so  high,  there  were,  of 
course,  passionate  arguments.  The  Act  of  Supremacy, 
the  spread  of  Protestantism,  the  power  of  the  pope,  the 
state  of  England  —  all  were  discussed ;  and  the  possibil- 
ities of  the  future,  as  each  party  painted  it  in  the  colors 
of  his  hopes.  The  brethren,  we  find,  spoke  their  minds  in 
plain  language,  sometimes  condescending  to  a  joke. 

Brother  Sherborne  deposes  that  the  sub-prior,  "  on 
Candlemas-day  last  past  (February  2,  153G),  asked  him 
whether  he  longed  not  to  be  at  Rome  where  all  his  bulls 
were  ?  "  Brother  Sherborne  answered  that  "  his  bulls  had 
made  so  many  calves,  that  he  had  burned  them.  "Where- 
unto  the  sub-prior  said  he  thought  there  were  more  calves 
now  than  there  were  then." 

Then  there  were  long  and  furious  quarrels  about  "  my 
Lord  Privy  Seal "  (Cromwell)  —  who  was  to  one  party, 
the  incarnation  of  Satan  ;  to  the  other,  the  delivering  angel. 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.         349 


Nor   did  matters  mend  when   from   the  minister 
passed  to  the  master. 

Dan  John  Croxton  being  in  "  the  shaving-house  "  one 
day  with  certain  of  the  brethren  having  their  tonsures 
looked  to,  and  gossiping,  as  men  do  on  such  occasions,  one 
"  Friar  Lawrence  did  say  that  the  king  was  dead."  Then 
said  Croxton,  "  Thanks  be  to  God,  his  Grace  is  in  good 
health,  and  I  pray  God  so  continue  him  ;  "  and  said  fur- 
ther to  the  said  Lawrence,  "  I  advise  thee  to  leave  thy 
babbling."  Croxton,  it  seems,  had  been  among  the  sus- 
pected in  earlier  times.  Lawrence  said  to  him,  "  Croxton,  it 
maketh  no  matter  what  thou  sayest,  for  thou  art  one  of  the 
new  world  ;  "  whereupon  hotter  still  the  conversation  pro- 
ceeded. "  Thy  babbling  tongue,"  Croxton  said,  "  will  turn 
us  all  to  displeasure  at  length."  "  Then,"  quoth  Lawrence, 
"  neither  thou  nor  yet  any  of  us  all  shall  do  well  as  long  as 
we  forsake  our  head  of  the  Church,  the  pope."  "  By  the 
mass  !  "  quoth  Croxton,  "  I  would  thy  Pope  Roger  were  in 
thy  belly,  or  thou  in  his,  for  thou  art  a  false  perjured  knave 
to  thy  prince."  Whereunto  the  said  Lawrence  answered, 
saying,  "  By  the  mass,  thou  liest  !  I  was  never  sworn  to 
forsake  the  pope  to  be  our  head,  and  never  will  be." 
"Then,"  quoth  Croxton,  "thou  shalt  be  sworn  spite  of 
thine  heart  one  day,  or  I  will  know  why  nay." 

These  and  similar  wranglings  may  be  taken  as  speci- 
mens of  the  daily  conversation  at  Woburn,  and  we  can 
perceive  how  an  abbot  with  the  best  intentions  would 
have  found  it  difficult  to  keep  the  peace.  There  are  in- 
stances of  superiors  in  other  houses  throwing  down  their 
command  in  the  midst  of  the  crisis  in  flat  despair,  pro- 
testing that  their  subject  brethren  were  no  longer  govern- 
able. Abbots  who  were  inclined  to  the  Reformation  could 
not  manage  the  Catholics  ;  Catholic  abbots  could  not  man- 
age the  Protestants  ;  indifferent  abbots  could  not  manage 
either  the  one  or  the  other.  It  would  have  been  well  for 
the  Abbot  of  Woburn  —  or  well  as  far  as  this  world  is  con- 


850  TJie  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

ccrned  —  if  he,  like  one  of  these,  had  acknowledged  his 
incapacity,  and  had  fled  from  his  charge. 

His  name  was  Kobert  Hobbes.  Of  his  age  and  family, 
history  is  silent.  We  know  only  that  he  held  his  place 
M'hen  the  storm  rose  against  the  pope ;  that,  like  the  rest 
of  the  clergy,  he  bent  before  the  blast,  taking  the  oath  to 
the  king,  and  submitting  to  the  royal  supremacy,  but 
swearing  under  protest,  as  the  phrase  went,  with  the  out- 
ward, and  not  with  the  inward  man  —  in  fact,  perjuring 
himself.  Though  infirm,  so  far,  however,  he  was  too  hon- 
est to  be  a  successful  counterfeit,  and  from  the  jealous  eyes 
of  the  Neologians  of  the  abbey  he  could  not  conceal  his 
tendencies.  We  have  significant  evidence  of  the  espionage 
which  was  established  over  all  suspected  quarters,  in  the 
conversations  and  trifling  details  of  conduct,  on  the  part  of 
the  abbot,  which  were  reported  to  the  Government. 

In  the  summer  of  1534,  orders  came  that  the  pope's 
name  should  be  rased  out  wherever  it  was  mentioned  in 
the  Mass  books.  A  malcontent,  by  name  Robert  Salford, 
deposed  that  "  he  was  singing  mass  before  the  abbot  at 
St.  Thomas's  altar  within  the  monastery,  at  which  time  he 
rased  out  with  his  knife  the  said  name  out  of  the  canon." 
The  abbot  told  him  to  "  take  a  pen  and  strike  or  cross  him 
out."  The  saucy  monk  said  those  were  not  the  orders. 
They  were  to  rase  him  out.  "  Well,  well,"  the  abbot  said, 
"  it  will  come  again  one  day."  "  Come  again,  will  it  ? " 
was  the  answer  ;  "  if  it  do,  then  we  will  put  him  in  again  ; 
but  I  trust  I  shall  never  see  that  day."  The  mild  abbot 
could  remonstrate,  but  could  not  any  more  command ; 
and  the  proofs  of  his  malignant  inclinations  were  remem- 
bered against  him  for  the  ear  of  Cromwell. 

In  the  general  injunctions,  too,  he  was  directed  to 
preach  against  the  pope,  and  to  expose  his  usurpation; 
but  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  obey.  He  shrank  from 
the  pulpit ;  he  preached  but  twice  after  the  visitation,  and 
then  on  other  subjects,  while  in  the  prayer  before  the  ser- 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          351 

mon  he  refused,  as  we  find,  to  use  the  prescribed  form. 
He  only  said,  "  You  shall  pray  for  the  spirituality,  the  tem- 
porality, and  the  souls  that  be  in  the  pains  of  purgatory  ; 
and  did  not  name  the  king  to  be  supreme  head  of  the 
Church  in  neither  of  the  said  sermons,  nor  speak  against 
the  pretended  authority  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome." 

Again,  when  Paul  the  Third,  shortly  after  his  election, 
proposed  to  call  a  general  council  at  Mantua,  against  which, 
by  advice  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  the  Germans  protested, 
we  have  a:  glimpse  how  eagerly  anxious  English  eyes  were 
watching  for  a  turning  tide.  "  Hear  you,"  said  the  abbot 
one  day,  "  of  the  pope's  holiness  and  the  congregation  of 
bishops,  abbots,  and  princes  gathered  to  the  council  at 
Mantua  ?  They  be  gathered  for  the  reformation  of  the 
universal  Church ;  and  here  now  we  have  a  book  of  the 
excuse  of  the  Germans,  by  which  we  may  know  what  here- 
tics they  be  :  for  if  they  were  Catholics  and  true  men  as 
they  pretend  to  be,  they  would  never  have  refused  to  come 
to  a  general  council." 

So  matters  went  with  the  abbot  for  some  months  after  he 
had  sworn  obedience  to  the  king.  Lulling  his  conscience 
with  such  opiates  as  the  casuists  could  provide  for  him,  he 
watched  anxiously  for  a  change,  and  labored  with  but 
little  reserve  to  hold  his  brethren  to  their  old  allegiance. 

In  the  summer  of  1535,  however,  a  change  came  over 
the  scene,  very  different  from  the  outward  reaction  for 
which  he  was  looking,  and  a  better  mind  woke  in  the  ab- 
bot: he  learnt  that  in  swearing  what  he  did  not  mean 
with  reservations  and  nice  distinctions,  he  had  lied  to 
Heaven  and  lied  to  man  ;  that  to  save  his  miserable  life  he 
had  periled  his  soul.  When  the  oath  of  supremacy  was 
required  of  the  nation,  Sir  Thomas  More,  Bishop  Fisher, 
and  the  monks  of  the  Charterhouse  —  mistaken,  as  we  be- 
lieve, in  judgment,  but  true  to  their  consciences,  and  dis- 
daining evasion  or  subterfuge  —  chose,  with  deliberate 
nobleness,  rather  to  die  than  to  perjure  themselves.  This 


352          The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

is  no  place  to  enter  on  the  great  question  of  the  justice  or 
necessity  of  those  executions ;  but  the  story  of  the  so-called 
martyrdoms  convulsed  the  Catholic  world.  The  pope 
shook  upon  his  throne ;  the  shuttle  of  diplomatic  intrigue 
stood  still ;  diplomatists  who  had  lived  so  long  in  lies  that 
the  whole  life  of  man  seemed  but  a  stage  pageant,  a  thing 
of  show  and  tinsel,  stood  aghast  at  the  revelation  of  English 
sincerity,  and  a  shudder  of  great  awe  ran  through  Europe. 
The  fury  of  party  leaves  little  room  for  generous  emotion, 
and  no  pity  was  felt  for  these  men  by  the  English  Protest- 
ants.  The  Protestants  knew  well  that  if  these  same  suf- 
ferers could  have  had  their  way,  they  would  themselves 
have  been  sacrificed  by  hecatombs ;  and  as  they  had  never 
experienced  mercy,  so  they  were  in  turn  without  mercy. 
But  to  the  English  Catholics,  who  believed  as  Fisher  be- 
lieved, but  who  had  not  dared  to  suffer  as  Fisher  suffered, 
his  death  and  the  death  of  the  rest  acted  as  a  glimpse  of 
the  Judgment  Day.  Their  safety  became  their  shame  and 
terror ;  and  in  the  radiant  example  before  them  of  true 
faithfulness,  they  saw  their  own  falsehood  and  their  own 
disgrace.  So  it  was  with  Father  Forest,  who  had  taught 
his  penitents  in  confession  that  they  might  perjure  them- 
selves, and  who  now  sought  a  cruel  death  in  voluntary  ex- 
piation ;  so  it  was  with  Whiting,  the  Abbot  of  Glaston- 
bury  ;  so  with  others  whose  names  should  be  more  familiar 
to  us  than  they  are ;  and  here  in  "Woburn  we  are  to  see 
the  feeble  but  genuine  penitence  of  Abbot  Hobbes.  He 
was  still  unequal  to  immediate  martyrdom,  but  he  did  what 
he  knew  might  drag  his  death  upon  him  if  disclosed  to  the 
Government,  and  surrounded  by  spies  he  could  have  had 
no  hope  of  concealment. 

"  At  the  time,"  deposed  Robert  Salford,  "  that  the  monks 
of  the  Charterhouse,  with  other  traitors,  did  suffer  death, 
the  abbot  did  call  us  into  the  chapter-house,  and  said  these 
words :  — '  Brethren,  this  is  a  perilous  time  ;  such  a  scourge 
was  never  heard  since  Christ's  passion.  Ye  hear  how  good 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          353 

men  suffer  the  death.  Brethren,  this  is  undoubted  for  our 
offenses.  Ye  read,  so  long  as  the  children  of  Israel  kept 
the  commandments  of  God,  so  long  their  enemies  had  no 
power  over  them,  but  God  took  vengeance  of  their  enemies. 
But  when  they  broke  God's  commandments,  then  they  were 
subdued  by  their  enemies,  and  so  be  we.  Therefore  let  us 
be  sorry  for  our  offenses.  Undoubted  He  will  take  ven- 
geance of  our  enemies ;  I  mean  those  heretics  that  causeth 
so  many  good  men  to  suffer  thus.  Alas,  it  is  a  piteous 
case  that  so  much  Christian  blood  should  be  shed.  There- 
fore, good  brethren,  for  the  reverence  of  God,  every  one  of 
you  devoutly  pray,  and  say  this  Psalm,  "  0  God,  the  hea- 
then are  come  into  thine  inheritance ;  thy  holy  temple 
have  they  defiled,  and  made  Jerusalem  a  heap  of  stones. 
The  dead  bodies  of  thy  servants  have  they  given  to  be 
meat  to  the  fowls  of  the  air,  and  the  flesh  of  thy  saints 
unto  the  beasts  of  the  field.  Their  blood  have  they  shed 
like  water  on  every  side  of  Jerusalem,  and  there  was  no 
man  to  bury  them.  We  are  become  an  open  scorn  unto 
our  enemies,  a  very  scorn  and  derision  unto  them  that  are 
round  about  us.  Oh,  remember  not  our  old  sins,  but  have 
mercy  upon  us,  and  that  soon,  for  we  are  come  to  great 
misery.  Help  us,  O  God  of  our  salvation,  for  the  glory  of 
thy  name.  Oh,  be  merciful  unto  our  sins  for  thy  name's 
sake.  Wherefore  do  the  heathen  say,  Where  is  now  their 
God  ?  "  Ye  shall  say  this  Psalm,'  repeated  the  abbot, '  every 
Friday,  after  the  litany,  prostrate,  when  ye  lie  upon  the 
high  altar,  and  undoubtedly  God  will  cease  this  extreme 
scourge.'  And  so,"  continues  Salford,  significantly,  "the 
convent  did  say  this  aforesaid  Psalm  until  there  were  cer- 
tain that  did  murmur  at  the  saying  of  it,  and  so  it  was  left." 
The  abbot,  it  seems,  either  stood  alone,  or  found  butA 
languid  support ;  even  his  own  familiar  friends  whom  he 
trusted,  those  with  whom  he  had  walked  in  the  house  of 
God,  had  turned  against  him ;  the  harsh  air  of  the  dawn 
of  a  new  world  choked  him ;  what  was  there  for  him 
23 


354  The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

but  to  die  ?  But  his  conscience  still  haunted  him ;  while 
he  lived  he  must  fight  on,  and  so,  if  possible,  find  par- 
don for  his  perjury.  The  blows  in  those  years  fell  upon 
the  Church  thick  and  fast.  In  February,  1536,  the  Bill 
passed  for  the  dissolution  of  the  smaller  monasteries  ; 
and  now  we  find  the  sub-prior  with  the  whole  fraternity 
united  in  hostility,  and  the  abbot  without  one  friend  re- 
maining. 

"  He  did  again  call  us  together,"  says  the  next  deposi- 
tion, "and  lamentably  mourning  for  the  dissolving  the 
said  houses,  he  enjoined  us  to  sing  '  Salvator  mundi,  salva 
nos  omnes,'  every  day  after  lauds ;  and  we  murmured  at 
it,  and  were  not  content  to  sing  it  for  such  cause ;  and  so 
we  did  omit  it  clivers  days,  for  which  the  abbot  came  unto 
the  chapter,  and  did  in  manner  rebuke  us,  and  said  we 
were  bound  to  obey  his  commandment  by  our  profession, 
and  so  did  command  us  to  sing  it  again,  with  the  versicle 
'  Let  God  arise,  and  let  his  enemies  be  scattered.  Let 
them  also  that  hate  him  flee  before  him.'  Also  he  enjoined 
us  at  every  mass  that  every  priest  did  sing,  to  say  the  col- 
lect, '  O  God,  who  despisest  not  the  sighing  of  a  contrite 
heart.'  And  he  said  if  we  did  this  with  good  and  true  de- 
votion, God  would  so  handle  the  matter,  that  it  should  be 
to  the  comfort  of  all  England,  and  so  show  us  mercy  as  he 
showed  unto  the  children  of  Israel.  And  surely,  brethren, 
there  will  come  to  us  a  good  man  that  will  rectify  these 
monasteries  again  that  be  now  supprest,  because  '  God  can 
of  these  stones  raise  up  children  to  Abraham.' " 

"  Of  the  stones,"  perhaps,  but  less  easily  of  the  stony- 
hearted monks,  who,  with  pitiless  smiles,  watched  the  ab- 
bot's sorrow,  which  should  soon  bring  him  to  his  ruin. 

Time  passed  on,  and  as  the  world  grew  worse,  so  the 
abbot  grew  more  lonely.  Desolate  and  unsupported,  he 
was  still  unable  to  make  up  his  mind  to  the  course  which 
he  knew  to  be  right ;  but  he  slowly  strengthened  himself 
for  the  trial,  and  as  Lent  came  on,  the  season  brought  with 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          355 

it  a  more  special  call  to  effort ;  he  did  not  fail  to  recognize 
it.  The  conduct  of  the  fraternity  sorely  disturbed  him. 
They  preached  against  all  which  he  most  loved  and  valued, 
in  language  purposely  coarse  ;  and  the  mild  sweetness  of  the 
rebukes  which  he  administered,  showed  plainly  on  which 
side  lay,  in  the  Abbey  of  Woburn,  the  larger  portion  of  the 
spirit  of  Heaven.  Now,  when  the  passions  of  those  times 
have  died  away,  and  we  can  look  back  with  more  indif- 
ferent eyes,  how  touching  is  the  following  scene.  There 
was  one  Sir  William,  curate  of  Woburn  Chapel,  whose 
tongue,  it  seems,  was  rough  beyond  the  rest.  The  abbot 
met  him  one  day,  and  spoke  to  him.  "  Sir  William,"  he 
said,  "  I  hear  tell  ye  be  a  great  railer.  I  marvel  that  ye 
rail  so.  I  pray  you  teach  my  cure  the  Scripture  of  God, 
and  that  may  be  to  edification.  I  pray  you  leave  such 
railing.  Ye  call  the  pope  a  bear  and  a  bandog.  Either 
he  is  a  good  man  or  an  ill.  Domino  suo  stat  aut  cadit. 
The  office  of  a  bishop  is  honorable.  What  edifying  is  this 
to  rail  ?  Let  him  alone." 

But  they  would  not  let  him  alone,  nor  would  they  let  the 
abbot  alone.  He  grew  "  somewhat  acrasecl,"  they  said ; 
vexed  with  feelings  of  which  they  had  no  experience.  He 
fell  sick,  sorrow  and  the  Lent  discipline  weighing  upon 
him.  The  brethren-  went  to  see  him  in  his  room ;  one 
Brother  Dan  Woburn  came  among  the  rest,  and  asked  him 
how  he  did ;  the  abbot  answered,  "  I  would  that  I  had  died 
with  the  good  men  that  died  for  holding  with  the  pope. 
My  conscience,  my  conscience  doth  grudge  me  every  day 
for  it."  Life  was  fast  losing  its  value  for  him.  What  was 
life  to  him  or  any  man  when  bought  with  a  sin  against  his 
soul  ?  "  If  the  abbot  be  disposed  to  die,  for  that  matter," 
Brother  Croxton  observed,  "  he  may  die  as  soon  as  he  will." 

All  Lent  he  fasted  and  prayed,  and  his  illness  grew  upon 
him ;  and  at  length  in  Passion  Week  he  thought  all  was 
over,  and  that  he  was  going  away.  On  Passion  Sunday  he 
called  the  brethren  about  him.  and  as  they  stood  round  his 


356          The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries. 

bed,  with  their  cold,  hard  eyes,  "  he  exhorted  them  all  to 
charity  ;  "  he  implored  them  "  never  to  consent  to  go  out 
of  their  monastery  ;  and  if  it  chanced  them  to  be  put  from 
it,  they  should  in  no  wise  forsake  their  habit."  After  these 
words,  "  being  in  a  great  agony,  he  rose  out  of  his  bed,  and 
cried  out  and  said, '  I  would  to  God,  it  would  please  Him  to 
take  me  out  of  this  wretched  world ;  and  I  would  I  had 
died  with  the  good  men  that  have  suffered  death  hereto- 
fore, for  they  were  quickly  out  of  their  pain.' "  l  Then, 
half  wandering,  he  began  to  mutter  to  himself  aloud  the 
thoughts  which  had  been  working  in  him  in  his  struggles  ; 
and  quoting  St.  Bernard's  words  about  the  pope,  he  ex- 
claimed, "  Tu  quis  es  primatu  Abel,  gubernatione  Noah, 
auctoritate  Moses,  judicatu  Samuel,  potestate  Petrus,  unc- 
tione  Christus.  Alias  ecclesiae  habent  super  se  pastores. 
Tu  pastor  pastorum  es." 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  this  is  no  sentimental  fiction 
begotten  out  of  the  brain  of  some  ingenious  novelist,  but 
the  record  of  the  true  words  and  sufFerings  of  a  genuine 
child  of  Adam,  laboring  in  a  trial  too  hard  for  him. 

He  prayed  to  die,  and  in  good  time  death  was  to  come 
to  him ;  but  not,  after  all,  in  the  sick-bed,  with  his  expia- 
tion but  half  completed.  A  year  before,  he  had  thrown 
down  the  cross  when  it  was  offered  him.  He  was  to  take 
it  again  —  the  very  cross  which  he  had  refused.  He  re- 
covered. He  was  brought  before  the  council ;  with  what 
result,  there  are  no  means  of  knowing.  To  admit  the 
papal  supremacy  when  officially  questioned  was  high  trea- 
son. Whether  the  abbot  was  constant,  and  received  some 
conditional  pardon,  or  whether  his  heart  again  for  the 
moment  failed  him  —  whichever  he  did,  the  records  are 
silent  This  only  we  ascertain  of  him :  that  he  was  not 
put  to  death  under  the  statute  of  supremacy.  But,  two 
years  later,  when  the  official  list  was  presented  to  the  Par- 
liament of  those  who  had  suffered  for  their  share  in  "  the 
1  Meaning,  as  he  afterwards  said,  More  and  Fisher  and  the  Carthusians. 


The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.          357 

Pilgrimage  of  Grace,"  among  the  rest  we  find  the  name 
of  Robert  Hobbes,  late  Abbot  of  "Woburn.  To  this  soli- 
tary fact  we  can  add  nothing.  The  rebellion  was  put 
down,  and  in  the  punishment  of  the  offenders  there  was 
unusual  leniency  ;  not  more  than  thirty  persons  were  ex- 
ecuted, although  forty  thousand  had  been  in  arms.  Those 
only  were  selected  who  had  been  most  signally  implicated. 
But  they  were  all  leaders  in  the  movement ;  the  men  of 
highest  rank,  and  therefore  greatest  guilt.  They  died  for 
what  they  believed  their  duty ;  and  the  king  and  council 
did  their  duty  in  enforcing  the  laws  against  armed  insur- 
gents. He  for  whose  cause  each  supposed  themselves  to  be 
contending  has  long  since  judged  between  them ;  and 
both  parties  perhaps  now  see  all  things  with  clearer  eyes 
than  was  permitted  to  them  on  earth. 

"We  also  can  see  more  distinctly.  We  will  not  refuse 
the  Abbot  Hobbes  a  brief  record  of  his  trial  and  passion. 
And  although  twelve  generations  of  Russells  —  all  loyal 
to  the  Protestant  ascendancy  —  have  swept  Woburn  clear 
of  Catholic  associations,  they,  too,  in  these  later  days,  will 
not  regret  to  see  revived  the  authentic  story  of  its  last 
abbot 


ENGLAND'S  FORGOTTEN  WORTHIES, 


1.  The   Observations  of  Sir  Richard  Hawkins,  Knt.,   in  his 
Voyage  in  the  South  Sea  in  1593.     Reprinted  from  the  Edition 
of  1622,  and  Edited  by  R.  H.  Major,  Esq.,  of  the  British  Museum. 
Published  by  the  Hakluyt  Society. 

2.  The  Discoverie  of  the  Empire  of  Guiana,     By  Sir  Walter 
Ralegh,    Knt.      Edited,  -with    copious    Explanatory    Notes,    and 
a   Biographical   Memoir,  by  Sir    Robert  II.    Schomburgk,  Phil. 
D.,  &c. 

3.  Narratives  of  Early  Voyages  undertaken  for  the  Discovery 
of  a  Passage  to  Calhaia  and  India  by  the  Northwest ;  with  Selec- 
tions from  the  Records  of  the  Worshipful  Fellowship  of  the  Mer- 
chants of  London,  trading  into  the  East  Indies,  and  from  MSS. 
in  the  Library  of  the  British  Museum,  now  first  published,  by 
Thomas  Rundall,  Esq. 

THE  Reformation,  the  Antipodes,  the  American  conti- 
nent, the  Planetary  system,  and  the  infinite  deep  of  the 
Heavens,  have  now  become  common  and  familiar  facts  to 
us.  Globes  and  orreries  are  the  playthings  of  our  school- 
days ;  -we  inhale  the  spirit  of  Protestantism  with  our  ear- 
liest breath  of  consciousness.  It  is  all  but  impossible  to 
throw  back  our  imagination  into  the  time  when,  as  new 
grand  discoveries,  they  stirred  every  mind  which  they 
touched  with  awe  and  wonder  at  the  revelation  which  God 
had  sent  down  among  mankind.  Vast  spiritual  and  ma- 
terial continents  lay  for  the  first  time  displayed,  opening 
fields  of  thought  and  fields  of  enterprise  of  which  none 
could  conjecture  the  limit  Old  routine  was  broken  up. 

1    Westminster  Review.  1853. 


England's  Forgotten    Worthies.  359 

Men  were  thrown  back  on  their  own  strength  and  their 
own  power,  unshackled,  to  accomplish  whatever  they 
might  dare.  And  although  we  do  not  speak  of  these  dis- 
coveries as  the  cause  of  that  enormous  force  of  heart 
and  intellect  which  accompanied  them  (for  they  were  as 
much  the  effect  as  the  cause,  and  one  reacted  on  the 
other),  yet  at  any  rate  they  afforded  scope  and  room 
for  the  play  of  powers  which,  without  such  scope,  let 
them  have  been  as  transcendent  as  they  would,  must 
have  passed  away  unproductive  and  blighted. 

An  earnest  faith  in  the  supernatural,  an  intensely  real 
conviction  of  the  divine  and  devilish  forces  by  which  the 
universe  was  guided  and  misguided,  was  the  inheritance 
of  the  Elizabethan  age  from  Catholic  Christianity.  The 
fiercest  and  most  lawless  men  did  then  really  and  truly 
believe  in  the  actual  personal  presence  of  God  or  the 
devil  in  every  accident,  or  scene,  or  action.  They  brought 
to  the  contemplation  of  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth 
an  imagination  saturated  with  the  spiritual  convictions  of 
the  old  era,  which  were  not  lost,  but  only  infinitely  ex- 
panded. The  planets,  whose  vastness  they  now  learnt  to 
recognize,  were,  therefore,  only  the  more  powerful  for  evil 
or  for  good ;  the  tides  were  the  breathing  of  Demogorgon ; 
and  the  idolatrous  American  tribes  were  real  worshipers  of 
the  real  devil,  and  were  assisted  with  the  full  power  of  his 
evil  army. 

It  is  a  form  of  thought  which,  however  in  a  vague  and 
general  way  we  may  continue  to  use  its  phraseology,  has 
become,  in  its  detailed  application  to  life,  utterly  strange  to 
us.  We  congratulate  ourselves  on  the  enlargement  of 
our  understanding  when  we  read  the  decisions  of  grave  law 
courts  in  cases  of  supposed  witchcraft ;  we  smile  compla- 
cently over  Raleigh's  story  of  the  island  of  the  Amazons, 
and  rejoice  that  we  are  not  such  as  he  —  entangled  in  the 
cobwebs  of  effete  and  foolish  superstition.  Yet  the  true  con- 
clusion is  less  flattering  to  our  vanity.  That  Ealeigh  and 


860  England's  Fcrgotten    Worthies. 

Bacon  could  believe  what  they  believed,  and  could  be  what 
they  were  notwithstanding,  is  to  us  a  proof  that  the  injury 
which  such  mistakes  can  inflict  is  unspeakably  insignifi- 
cant ;  and  arising,  as  they  arose,  from  a  never-failing  sense 
of  the  real  awfulness  and  mystery  of  the  world,  and  of  the 
life  of  human  souls  upon  it,  they  witness  to  the  presence 
in  such  minds  of  a  spirit,  the  loss  of  which  not  the  most 
perfect  acquaintance  with  every  law  by  which  the  whole  cre- 
ation moves  can  compensate.  We  wonder  at  the  grandeur, 
the  moral  majesty,  of  some  of  Shakespeare's  characters,  so 
far  beyond  what  the  noblest  among  ourselves  can  imitate, 
and  at  first  thought  we  attribute  it  to  the  genius  of  the 
poet,  who  has  outstripped  Nature  in  his  creations.  But  we 
are  misunderstanding  the  power  and  the  meaning  of 
poetry  in  attributing  creativeness  to  it  in  any  such  sense. 
Shakespeare  created,  but  only  as  the  spirit  of  Nature 
created  around  him,  working  in  him  as  it  worked  abroad 
in  those  among  whom  he  lived.  The  men  whom  he  draws 
were  such  men  as  he  saw  and  knew  ;  the  words  they  utter 
were  such  as  he  heard  in  the  ordinary  conversations  in 
which  he  joined.  At  the  Mermaid  with  Raleigh  and  with 
Sidney,  and  at  a  thousand  unnamed  English  firesides,  he 
found  the  living  originals  for  his  Prince  Hals,  his  Orlan- 
dos,  his  Antonios,  his  Portias,  his  Isabellas.  The  closer 
personal  acquaintance  which  we  can  form  with  the  English 
of  the  age  of  Elizabeth,  the  more  we  are  satisfied  that 
Shakespeare's  great  poetry  is  no  more  than  the  rhythmic 
echo  of  the  life  which  it  depicts. 

It  was,  therefore,  with  no  little  interest  that  we  heard  of 
the  formation  of  a  society  which  was  to  employ  itself,  as 
we  understood,  in  republishing  in  accessible  form  some,  if 
not  all,  of  the  invaluable  records  compiled  or  composed  by 
Richard  Hakluyt.  Books,  like  every  thing  else,  have  their 
appointed  death-day ;  the  souls  of  them,  unless  they  be 
found  worthy  of  a  second  birth  in  a  new  body,  perish  with 
the  paper  in  which  they  lived ;  and  the  early  folio  Hak- 


England's  Forgotten   Worthies.  361 

luyts,  not  from  their  own  want  of  merit,,  but  from  our  neg- 
lect of  them,  were  expiring  of  old  age.  The  five-volume 
quarto  edition,  published  in  1811,  so  little  people  then 
cared  for  the  exploits  of  their  ancestors,  consisted  but  of 
270  copies.  It  was  intended  for  no  more  than  for  curious 
antiquaries,  or  for  the  great  libraries,  where  it  could  be 
consulted  as  a  book  of  reference ;  and  among  a  people, 
the  greater  part  of  whom  had  never  heard  Hakluyt's  name, 
the  editors  are  scarcely  to  be  blamed  if  it  never  so  much 
as  occurred  to  them  that  general  readers  would  care  to 
have  the  book  within  their  reach. 

And  yet  those  five  volumes  may  be  called  the  Prose 
Epic  of  the  modern  English  nation.  They  contain  the 
heroic  tales  of  the  exploits  of  the  great  men  in  whom  the 
new  era  was  inaugurated ;  not  mythic,  like  the  Iliads  and 
the  Eddas,  but  plain  broad  narratives  of  substantial  facts, 
which  rival  legend  in  interest  and  grandeur.  What  the 
old  epics  were  to  the  royally  or  nobly  born,  this  modern 
epic  is  to  the  common  people.  We  have  no  longer  kings 
or  princes  for  chief  actors,  to  whom  the  heroism,  like  the 
dominion  of  the  world,  had  in  time  past  been  confined. 
But,  as  .it  was  in  the  days  of  the  Apostles,  when  a  few  poor 
fishermen  from  an  obscure  lake  in  Palestine  assumed, 
under  the  Divine  mission,  the  spiritual  i-iithority  over  man- 
kind, so,  in  the  days  of  our  own  Elizabeth,  the  seamen 
from  the  banks  of  the  Thames  and  the  Avon,  the  Plym 
and  the  Dart,  self-taught  and  self-directed,  with  no  impulse 
but  what  was  beating  in  their  own  royal  hearts,  went  out 
across  the  unknown  seas,  fighting,  discovering,  colonizing, 
and  graved  out  the  channels,  paving  them  at  last  with  their 
bones,  through  which  the  commerce  and  enterprise  of 
England  has  flowed  out  over  all  the  world.  We  can  con- 
ceive nothing,  not  the  songs  of  Homer  himself,  which 
would  be  read  among  us  with  more  enthusiastic  interest 
than  these  plain  massive  tales  ;  and  a  people's  edition  of 
them  in  these  days,  when  the  writings  of  Ainsworth  and 


862  England's  Forgotten   Worthies. 

Eugene  Sue  circulate  in  tens  of  thousands,  would  per- 
haps be  the  most  blessed  antidote  which  could  be  bestowed 
upon  us.  The  heroes  themselves  were  the  men  of  the 
people  —  the  Joneses,  the  Smiths,  the  Davises,  the  Drakes ; 
and  no  courtly  pen,  with  the  one  exception  of  Raleigh, 
lent  its  polish  or  its  varnish  to  set  them  off.  In  most  cases 
the  captain  himself,  or  his  clerk  or  servant,  or  some  un- 
known gentleman  volunteer,  sat  down  and  chronicled  the 
voyage  which  he  had  shared  ;  and  thus  inorganically  arose 
a  collection  of  writings  which,  with  all  their  simplicity,  are 
for  nothing  more  striking  than  for  the  high  moral  beauty, 
warmed  with  natural  feeling,  which  displays  itself  through 
all  their  pages.  With  us,  the  sailor  is  scarcely  himself  be- 
yond his  quarter-deck.  If  he  is  distinguished  in  his  pro- 
fession, he  is  professional  merely ;  or  if  he  is  more  than 
that,  he  owes  it  not  to  his  work  as  a  sailor,  but  to  independ- 
ent domestic  culture.  With  them  their  profession  was  the 
school  of  their  nature,  a  high  moral  education  which  most 
brought  out  what  was  most  nobly  human  in  them  ;  and  the 
wonders  of  earth,  and  air,  and  sea,  and  sky,  were  a  real 
intelligible  language  in  which  they  heard  Almighty  God 
speaking  to  them. 

That  such  hopes  of  what  might  be  accomplished  by  the 
Hakluyt  Society  should  in  some  measure  be  disappointed, 
is  only  what  might  naturally  be  anticipated  of  all  very  san- 
guine expectation.  Cheap  editions  are  expensive  editions 
to  the  publisher ;  and  historical  societies,  from  a  necessity 
which  appears  to  encumber  all  corporate  English  action, 
rarely  fail  to  do  their  work  expensively  and  infelicitously. 
Yet,  after  all  allowances  and  deductions,  we  cannot  recon- 
cile ourselves  to  the  mortification  of  having  found  but  one 
volume  in  the  series  to  be  even  tolerably  edited,  and  that 
one  to  be  edited  by  a  gentleman  to  whom  England  is  but 
an  adopted  country  —  Sir  Robert  Schomburgk.  Raleigh's 
"  Conquest  of  Guiana,"  with  Sir  Robert's  sketch  of  Ra- 
leigh's history  and  character,  form  in  every  thing  but  its 


England's  Forgotten   Worthies.  363 

cost  a  very  model  of  an  excellent  volume.  For  the  re- 
maining editors,1  we  are  obliged  to  say  that  they  have  ex- 
erted themselves  successfully  to  paralyze  whatever  interest 
was  reviving  in  Hakluyt,  and  to  consign  their  own  volumes 
to  the  same  obscurity  to  which  time  and  accident  were  con- 
signing the  earlier  editions.  Very  little  which  was  really 
noteworthy  escaped  the  industry  of  Hakluyt  himself,  and 
we  looked  to  find  reprints  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the 
stories  which  were  to  be  found  in  his  collection.  The  ed- 
itors began  unfortunately  with  proposing  to  continue  the 
work  where  he  had  left  it,  and  to  produce  narratives  hitherto 
unpublished  of  other  voyages  of  inferior  interest,  or  not  of 
English  origin.  Better  thoughts  appear  to  have  occurred 
to  them  in  the  course  of  the  work ;  but  their  evil  destiny 
overtook  them  before  their  thoughts  could  get  themselves 
executed.  We  opened  one  volume  with  eagerness,  bearing 
the  title  of  "  Voyages  to  the  Northwest,"  in  hope  of  find- 
ing our  old  friends  Davis  and  Frobisher.  "We  found  a  vast 
unnecessary  Editor's  Preface  ;  and  instead  of  the  voyages 
themselves,  which  with  their  picturesqueness  and  moral 
beauty  shine  among  the  fairest  jewels  in  the  diamond  mine 
of  Hukluyt,  we  encountered  an  analysis  and  digest  of  their 
results,  which  Milton  was  called  in  to  justify  in  an  inappro- 
priate quotation.  It  is  much  as  if  they  had  undertaken  to 
edit  "Bacon's  Essays,"  and  had  retailed  what  they  con- 
ceived to  be  the  substance  of  them  in  their  own  language  ; 
strangely  failing  to  see  that  the  real  value  of  the  actions 
or  the  thoughts  of  remarkable  men  does  not  lie  in  the  ma- 
terial result  which  can  be  gathered  from  them,  but  in  the 
heart  and  soul  of  the  actors  or  speakers  themselves.  Con- 
sider what  Homer's  "  Odyssey  "  would  be,  reduced  into  an 
analysis. 

The  editor  of  the  "  Letters  of  Columbus  "  apologizes  for 
the  rudeness  of  the  old  seaman's  phraseology.     Columbus, 
he  tells  us,  was  not  so  great  a  master  of  the  pen  as  of  the 
1  This  essay  \vas  written  15  years  ago. 


364  England's  Forgotten  Wortftie*. 

art  of  navigation.  We  are  to  make  excuses  for  him.  We 
are  put  on  our  guard,  and  warned  not  to  be  offended,  be- 
fore we  are  introduced  to  the  sublime  record  of  sufferings 
under  which  a  man  of  the  highest  order  was  staggering  to- 
wards the  end  of  his  earthly  calamities  ;  although  the  in- 
articulate fragments  in  which  his  thought  breaks  out  from 
him,  are  strokes  of  natural  art  by  the  side  of  which  literary 
pathos  is  poor  and  meaningless. 

And  even  in  the  subjects  which  they  select  they  are  pur- 
sued by  the  same  curious  fatality.  Why  is  Drake  to  be 
best  known,  or  to  be  only  known,  in  his  last  voyage  ?  Why 
pass  over  the  success,  and  endeavor  to  immortalize  the  fail- 
ure ?  When  Drake  climbed  the  tree  in  Panama,  and  saw 
both  oceans,  and  vowed  that  he  would  sail  a  ship  in  the 
Pacific;  when  he  crawled  out  upon  the  cliffs  of  Terra  del 
Fuego,  and  leaned  his  head  over  the  southernmost  angle  of 
the  world ;  when  he  scored  a  furrow  round  the  globe  with 
his  keel,  and  received  the  homage  of  the  barbarians  of  the 
antipodes  in  the  name  of  the  Virgin  Queen,  he  was  another 
man  from  what  he  had  become  after  twenty  years  of  court- 
life  and  intrigue,  and  Spanish  fighting  and  gold-hunting. 
There  is  a  tragic  solemnity  in  his  end,  if  we  take  it  as  the 
last  act  of  his  career ;  but  it  is  his  life,  not  his  death, 
which  we  desire  —  not  what  he  failed  to  do,  but  what  he 
did. 

But  every  bad  has  a  worse  below  it,  and  more  offensive 
than  all  these  is  the  editor  of  Hawkins's  "  Voyage  to  the 
South  Sea."  The  narrative  is  striking  in  itself;  not  one 
of  the  best,  but  very  good  ;  and,  as  it  is  republished  com- 
plete, we  can  fortunately  read  it  through,  carefully  shutting 
off  Captain  Bethune's  notes  with  one  hand,  and  we  shall 
then  find  in  it  the  same  beauty  which  breathes  in  the  tone 
of  all  the  writings  of  the  period. 

It  is  a  record  of  misfortune,  but  of  misfortune  which 
did  no  dishonor  to  him  who  sunk  under  it ;  and  there  is  a 
melancholy  dignity  in  the  style  in  which  Hawkins  tells  his 


England's  Forgotten   Worthies.  365 

story,  which  seems  to  say,  that  though  he  had  been  de- 
feated, and  had  never  again  an  opportunity  of  winning 
back  his  lost  laurels,  he  respects  himself  still  for  the  heart 
with  which  he  endured  a  shame  which  would  have  broken  a 
smaller  man.  It  would  have  required  no  large  exertion  of 
editorial  self-denial  to  have  abstained  from  marring  the 

O 

pages  with  puns  of  which  "  Punch "  would  be  ashamed, 
and  with  the  vulgar  affectation  of  patronage  with  which 
the  sea-captain  of  the  nineteenth  century  condescends  to 
criticize  and  approve  of  his  half-barbarous  precursor.  And 
what  excuse  can  we  find  for  such  an  offense  as  this  which 
follows.  The  war  of  freedom  of  the  Araucan  Indians  is 
the  most  gallant  episode  in  the  history  of  the  New  World. 
The  Spaniards  themselves  were  not  behindhand  in  ac- 
knowledging the  chivalry  before  which  they  quailed,  and, 
after  many  years  of  ineffectual  efforts,  they  gave  up  a  con- 
flict which  they  never  afterwards  resumed ;  leaving  the 
Araucans  alone,  of  all  the  American  races  with  which  they 
came  in  contact,  a  liberty  which  they  were  unable  to  tear 
from  them.  It  is  a  subject  for  an  epic  poem  ;  and  what- 
ever admiration  is  due  to  the  heroism  of  a  brave  people 
whom  no  inequality  of  strength  could  appall  and  no  defeats 
could  crush,  these  poor  Indians  have  a  right  to  demand  of 
us.  The  story  of  the  war  was  well  known  in  Europe ; 
Hawkins,  in  coasting  the  western  shores  of  South  America, 
fell  in  with  them,  and  the  finest  passage  in  his  book  is  the 
relation  of  one  of  the  incidents  of  the  war :  — 

An  Indian  captain  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  Spaniards,  and 
for  that  he  was  of  name,  and  known  to  have  done  his  devoir 
against  them,  they  cut  off  his  hands,  thereby  intending  to  disena- 
ble him  to  fight  any  more  against  them.  But  he,  returning  home, 
desirous  to  revenge  this  injury,  to  maintain  his  liberty,  with  the 
reputation  of  his  nation,  and  to  help  to  banish  the  Spaniard,  with 
his  tongue  entreated  and  incited  them  to  persevere  in  their  accus- 
tomed valor  and  reputation,  abasing  the  enemy  and  advancing  his 
nation  ;  condemning  their  contraries  of  cowardliness,  and  con- 


366  England's  Forgotten  Worthies. 

firming  it  by  the  cruelty  used  with  him  and  other  his  companions 
in  their  mishaps ;  showing  them  his  arms  without  hands,  and  nam- 
ing his  brethren  whose  half  feet  they  had  cut  off,  because  they 
might  be  unable  to  sit  on  horseback ;  with  force  arguing  that  if 
they  feared  them  not,  they  would  not  have  used  so  great  inhu- 
manity —  for  fear  produceth  cruelty,  the  companion  of  cowardice. 
Thus  encouraged  he  them  to  fight  for  their  lives,  limbs,  and  lib- 
erty, choosing  rather  to  die  an  honorable  death  fighting,  than  to 
live  in  servitude  as  fruitless  members  of  the  commonwealth.  Thus 
using  the  office  of  a  sergeant-major,  and  having  loaden  his  two 
stumps  witk  bundles  of  arrows,  he  succored  them  who,  in  the 
succeeding  battle  had  their  store  wasted ;  and  changing  himself 
from  place  to  place,  animated  and  encouraged  his  countrymen 
with  such  comfortable  persuasions,  as  it  is  reported  and  credibly 
believed,  that  he  did  more  good  with  his  words  and  presence, 
without  striking  a  stroke,  than  a  great  part  of  the  army  did  with 
fighting  to  the  utmost. 

It  is  an  action  which  may  take  its  place  by  the  side  of 
the  myth  of  Mucius  Scaevola,  or  the  real  exploit  of  that 
brother  of  the  poet  ^Eschylus,  who,  when  the  Persians  were 
flying  from  Marathon,  clung  to  a  ship  till  both  his  hands 
were  hewn  away,  and  then  seized  it  with  his  teeth,  leav- 
ing his  name  as  a  portent  even  in  the  splendid  calendar  of 
Athenian  heroes.  Captain  Bethune,  without  call  or  need, 
making  his  notes,  merely,  as  he  tells  us,  from  the  sugges- 
tions of  his  own  mind  as  he  revised  the  proof-sheets,  in- 
forms us,  at  the  bottom  of  the  page,  that  "  it  reminds  him 
of  the  familiar  lines,  — 

"  For  "Widdrington  I  needs  must  wail, 

As  one  in  doleful  dumps ; 
For  when  his  legs  were  smitten  off, 

He  fought  upon  his  stumps." 

It  must  not  avail  him,  that  he  has  but  quoted  from  the  bal- 
lad of  "  Chevy-Chase."  It  is  the  most  deformed  stanza1 

1  Here  is  the  old  stanza.  Let  whoever  is  disposed  to  think  115  too  hard 
on  Captain  Bethune  compare  them :  — 

"  For  Wetharrington  my  harte  was  TTO, 
That  even  he  slaync  sholdc  be; 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  367 

of  the  modern  deformed  version  which  was  composed  in 
the  eclipse  of  heart  and  taste,  on  the  restoration  of  the 
Stuarts ;  and  if  such  verses  could'  then  pass  for  serious 
poetry,  they  have  ceased  to  sound  in  any  ear  as  other  than 
a  burlesque  ;  the  associations  which  they  arouse  are  only 
absurd,  and  they  could  only  have  continued  to  ring  in  Injs 
memory  through  their  ludicrous  doggerel. 

When  to  these  offenses  of  the  Society  we  add,  that  in 
the  long  labored  appendices  and  introductions,  which  fill 
up  valuable  space,  which  increase  the  expense  of  the  edition, 
and  into  reading  which  many  readers  are,  no  doubt,  be- 
trayed, we  have  found  nothing  which  assists  the  understand- 
ing of  the  stories  which  they  are  supposed  to  illustrate  — 
when  we  have  declared  that  we  have  found  what  is  most 
uncommon  passed  without  notice,  and  what  is  most  trite 
and  familiar  encumbered  with  comment  —  we  have  un- 
packed our  hearts  of  the  bitterness  which  these  volumes 
have  aroused  in  us,  and  can  now  .take  our  leave  of  them 
and  go  on  with  our  more  grateful  subject. 

Elizabeth,  whose  despotism  was  as  peremptory  as  that 
of  the  Plantagenets,  and  whose  ideas  of  the  English  con- 
stitution were  limited  in  the  highest  degree,  was,  notwith- 
standing, more  beloved  by  her  subjects  than  any  sovereign 
before  or  since.  It  was  because,  substantially,  she  was  the 
people's  sovereign  ;  because  it  was  given  to  her  to  conduct 
the  outgrowth  of  the  national  life  through  its  crisis  of 
change,  and  the  weight  of  her  great  mind  and  her  great 
place  were  thrown  on  the  people's  side.  She  was  able  to 
paralyze  the  dying  efforts  with  which,  if  a  Stuart  had  been 
on  the  throne,  the  representatives  of  an  effete  system  might 
have  made  the  struggle  a  deadly  one ;  and  the  history  of 
England  is  not  the  history  of  France,  because  the  resolu- 

For  when  both  his  leggis  were  hewen  in  to, 
He  knyled  and  fought  on  his  knee." 

Even  Percy,  who,  on  the  whole,  thinks  well  of  the  modern  ballad,  gives  up 
this  stanza  as  hopeless. 


868  England's  Forgotten  Worthies. 

tion  of  one  person  held  the  Reformation  firm  till  it  had 
rooted  itself  in  the  heart  of  the  nation,  and  could  not 
be  again  overthrown.  The  Catholic  faith  was  no  longer 
able  to  furnish  standing  ground  on  which  the  English  or 
any  other  nation  could  live  a  manly  and  a  godly  life.  Feu- 
dalism, as  a  social  organization,  was  not  any  more  a  sys- 
tem under  which  their  energies  could  have  scope  to  move. 
Thenceforward,  not  the  Catholic  Church,  but  any  man  to 
whom  God  had  given  a  heart  tafeel  and  a  voice  to  speak, 
was  to  be  the  teacher  to  whom  men  were  to  listen ;  and 
great  actions  were  not  to  remain  the  privilege  of  the  fami- 
lies of  the  Norman  nobles,  but  were  to  be  laid  within  the 
reach  of  the  poorest  plebeian  who  had  the  stuff  in  him 
to  perform  them.  Alone,  of  all  the  sovereigns  in  Europe, 
Elizabeth  saw  the  change  which  had  passed  over  the  world. 
She  saw  it,  and  saw  it  in  faith,  and  accepted  it.  The  Eng- 
land of  the  Catholic  Hierarchy  and  the  Norman  Baron, 
was  to  cast  its  shell  and  to  become  the  England  of  free 
thought  and  commerce  and  manufacture,  which  was  to 
plough  the  ocean  with  its  navies,  and  sow  its  colonies  over 
the  globe ;  and  the  first  appearance  of  these  enormous 
forces  and  the  light  of  the  earliest  achievements  of  the 
new  era  shines  through  the  forty  years  of  the  reign-  of 
Elizabeth  with  a  grandeur  which,  when  once  its  history  is 
written,  will  be  seen  to  be  among  the  most  sublime  phe- 
nomena which  the  earth  as  yet  has  witnessed.  The  work 
was  not  of  her  creation  ;  the  heart  of  the  whole  English 
nation  was  stirred  to  its  depths ;  and  Elizabeth's  place  was 
to  recognize,  to  love,  to  foster,  and  to  guide.  The  Govern- 
ment originated  nothing ;  at  such  a  time  it  was  neither 
necessary  nor  desirable  that  it  should  do  so ;  but  wherever 
expensive  enterprises  were  on  foot  which  promised  ultimate 
good,  and  doubtful  immediate  profit,  we  never  fail  to  find 
among  the  lists  of  contributors  the  Queen's  Majesty, 
Burghley,  Leicester,  Walsingham.  Never  chary  of  her 
presence,  for  Elizabeth  could  afford  to  condescend,  when 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  369 

«Wps  in  the  river  were  fitting  for  distant  voyages,  the 
Queen  would  go  down  in  her  barge  and  inspect.  Fro- 
bisher,  who  was  but  a  poor  sailor  adventurer,  sees  her 
wave  her  handkerchief  to  him  from  the  Greenwich  Palace 
windows,  and  he  brings  her  home  a  narwhal's  horn  for  a 
present.  She  honored  her  people,  and  her  people  loved 
her ;  and  the  result  was  that,  with  no  cost  to  the  Govern- 
ment, she  saw  them  scattering  the  fleets  of  the  Spaniards, 
planting  America  with  colonies,  and  exploring  the  most 
distant  seas.  Either  for  honor  or  for  expectation  of  profit, 
or  from  that  unconscious  necessity  by  which  a  great  people, 
like  a  great  man,  will  do  what  is  right,  and  must  do  it  at 
the  right  time,  whoever  had  the  means  to  furnish  a  ship, 
and  whoever  had  the  talent  to  command  one,  laid  their 
abilities  together  and  went  out  to  pioneer,  and  to  conquer, 
and  take  possession,  in  the  name  of  the  Queen  of  the  Sea. 
There  was  no  nation  so  remote  but  what  some  one  or  other 
was  found  ready  to  undertake  an  expedition  there,  in  the 
hope  of  opening  a  trade  ;  and,  let  them  go  where  they 
would,  they  were  sure  of  Elizabeth's  countenance.  We 
find  letters  written  by  her,  for  the  benefit  of  nameless  ad- 
venturers, to  every  potentate  of  whom  she  had  ever  heard 
—  to  the  Emperors  of  China,  Japan,  and  India,  the  Grand 
Duke  of  Russia,  the  Grand  Turk,  the  Persian  "Sofee," 
and  other  unheard-of  Asiatic  and  African  princes ;  what- 
ever was  to  be  done  in  England,  or  by  Englishmen,  Eliza- 
beth assisted  when  she  could,  and  admired  when  she  could 
not.  The  springs  of  great  actions  are  always  difficult  to 
analyze  —  impossible  to  analyze  perfectly  —  possible  to 
analyze  only  very  proximately ;  and  the  force  by  which  a 
man  throws  a  good  action  out  of  himself  is  invisible  and 
mystical,  like  that  which  brings  out  the  blossom  and  the 
fruit  upon  the  tree.  The  motives  which  we  find  men  urg- 
ing for  their  enterprises  seem  often  insufficient  to  have 
prompted  them  to  so  large  a  daring.  They  did  what  they 
did  from  the  great  unrest  in  them  which  made  them  do  it, 
24 


8TO  England's  Forgotten  Worthies. 

and  what  it  was  may  be  best  measured  by  the  results  in  the 
present  England  and  America. 

Nevertheless,  there  was  enough  in  the  state  of  the  world, 
and  in  the  position  of  England,  to  have  furnished  abun- 
dance of  conscious  motive,  and  to  have  stirred  the  drowsiest 
minister  of  routine. 

Among  material  occasions  for  exertion,  the  population 
began  to  outgrow  the  employment,  and  there  was  a  neces- 
sity for  plantations  to  serve  as  an  outlet.  Men  who,  under 
happier  circumstances,  might  have  led  decent  lives,  and 
done  good  service,  were  now  driven  by  want  to  desperate 
courses  —  "  witness,"  as  Richard  Hakluyt  says,  "  twenty 
tall  fellows  hanged  last  Rochester  assizes  for  small  rob- 
beries ; "  and  there  is  an  admirable  paper  addressed  to  the 
Privy  Council  by  Christopher  Carlile,  Walsingham's  son- 
in-law,  pointing  out  the  possible  openings  to  be  made  in 
or  through  sueh  plantations  for  home  produce  and  manu- 
facture. 

Far  below  all  such  prudential  economics  and  mercantile 
ambitions,  however,  lay  a  chivalrous  enthusiasm  which  in 
these  dull  days  we  can  hardly,  without  an  effort,  realize. 
The  life-and-death  wrestle  between  the  Reformation  and 
the  old  religion  had  settled  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  six- 
teenth century  into  a  permanent  struggle  between  England 
and  Spain.  France  was  disabled.  All  the  help  which 
Elizabeth  could  spare  barely  enabled  the  Netherlands  to 
defend  themselves.  Protestantism,  if  it  conquered,  must 
conquer  on  another  field  ;  and  by  the  circumstances  of  the 
time  the  championship  of  the  Reformed  faith  fell  to  the 
English  sailors.  The  sword  of  Spain  was  forged  in  the 
gold-mines  of  Peru;  the  legions  of  Alva  were  only  to  be 
disarmed  by  intercepting  the  gold  ships  on  their  passage ; 
and,  inspired  by  an  enthusiasm  like  that  which  four  cen- 
turies before  had  precipitated  the  chivalry  of  Europe  upon 
the  East,  the  same  spirit  which  in  its  present  degeneracy 
covers  our  bays  and  rivers  with  pleasure  yachts,  then  fitted 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  371 

out  armed  privateers,  to  sweep  the  Atlantic  and  plunder 
and  destroy  Spanish  ships  wherever  they  could  meet  them. 

Thus  from  a  combination  of  causes,  the  whole  force  and 
energy  of  the  age  was  directed  towards  the  sea.  The 
wide  excitement,  and  the  greatness  of  the  interests  at 
stake,  raised  even  common  men  above  themselves ;  and 
people  who  in  ordinary  times  would  have  been  no  more 
than  mere  seamen,  or  mere  money-making  merchants, 
appear  before  us  with  a  largeness  and  greatness  of  heart 
and  mind  in  which  their  duties  to  God  and  their  country 
are  alike  clearly  and  broadly  seen  and  felt  to  be  para- 
mount to  every  other. 

Ordinary  English  traders  we  find  fighting  Spanish  war 
ships  in  behalf  of  the  Protestant  faith.  The  cruisers  of  the 
Spanish  Main  were  full  of  generous  eagerness  for  the  con- 
version of  the  savage  nations  to  Christianity.  And  what  is 
even  more  surprising,  sites  for  colonization  were  examined 
and  scrutinized  by  such  men  in  a  lofty  statesmanlike  spirit, 
and  a  ready  insight  was  displayed  by  them  into  the  indi- 
rect effects  of  a  wisely  extended  commerce  on  every  high- 
est human  interest. 

Again,  in  the  conflict  with  the  Spaniards,  there  was  a 
further  feeling,  a  feeling  of  genuine  chivalry,  which  was 
spurring  on  the  English,  and  one  which  must  be  well  un- 
derstood and  well  remembered,  if  men  like  Drake,  and 
Hawkins,  and  Raleigh  are  to  be  tolerably  understood. 
One  of  the  English  Reviews,  a  short  time  ago,  was  much 
amused  with  a  story  of  Drake  having  excommunicated  a 
petty  officer  as  a  punishment  for  some  moral  offense ;  the 
reviewer  not  being  able  to  see  in  Drake,  as  a  man,  any 
thing  more  than  a  highly  brave  and  successful  buccaneer, 
whose  pretenses  to  religion  might  rank  with  the  devotion 
of  an  Italian  bandit  to  the  Madonna.  And  so  Hawkins, 
and  even  Raleigh,  are  regarded  by  superficial  persons,  who 
see  only  such  outward  circumstances  of  their  history  as 
correspond  with  their  own  impressions.  The  high  nature 


872  England's  Forgotten   Worthies. 

of  these  men,  and  the  high  objects  which  they  pursued, 
will  only  rise  out  and  become  visible  to  us  as  we  can  throw 
ourselves  back  into  their  times  and  teach  our  hearts  to  feel 
as  they  felt.  We  do  not  find  in  the  language  of  the  voy- 
agers themselves,  or  of  those  who  lent  them  their  help  at 
home,  any  of  that  weak  watery  talk  of  "  protection  of  ab- 
origines," which,  as  soon  as  it  is  translated  into  fact,  be- 
comes the  most  active  policy  for  their  destruction,  soul  and 
body.  But  the  stories  of  the  dealings  of  the  Spaniards 
with  the  conquered  Indians,  which  were  widely  known  in 
England,  seem  to  have  affected  all  classes  of  people,  not 
with  pious  passive  horror,  but  with  a  genuine  human  indig- 
nation. A  thousand  anecdotes  in  detail  we  find  scattered 
up  and  down  the  pages  of  Hakluyt,  who,  with  a  view  to 
make  them  known,  translated  Peter  Martyr's  letters ;  and 
each  commonest  sailor-boy  who  had  heard  these  stories 
from  his  childhood  among  the  tales  of  his  father's  fireside, 
had  longed  to  be  a  man,  that  he  might  go  out  and  become 
the  avenger  of  a  gallant  and  suffering  people.  A  high 
mission,  undertaken  with  a  generous  heart,  seldom  fails  to 
make  those  worthy  of  it  to  whom  it  is  given ;  and  it  was  a 
point  of  honor,  if  of  nothing  more,  among  the  English  sail- 
ors, to  do  no  discredit  by  their  conduct  to  the  greatness  of 
their  cause.  The  high  courtesy,  the  chivalry  of  the  Span- 
ish nobles,  so  conspicuous  in  their  dealings  with  their 
European  rivals,  either  failed  to  touch  them  in  their  deal- 
ings with  uncultivated  idolaters,  or  the  high  temper  of  the 
aristocracy  was  unable  to  restrain  or  to  influence  the 
masses  of  the  soldiers.  It  would  be  as  ungenerous  as  it 
would  be  untrue,  to  charge  upon  their  religion  the  griev- 
ous actions  of  men  who  called  themselves  the  armed  mis- 
sionaries of  Catholicism,  when  the  Catholic  priests  and 
bishops  were  the  loudest  in  the  indignation  with  which 
they  denounced  them.  But  we  are  obliged  to  charge  upon 
it  that  slow  and  subtle  influence  so  inevitably  exercised  by 
any  religion  which  is  divorced  from  life,  and  converted 


England's  Forgotten   Worthies.  378 

into  a  thing  of  form,  or  creed,  or  ceremony,  or  sjstem— • 
which  could  permit  the  same  men  to  be  extravagant  in 
a  sincere  devotion  to  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  whose  entire 
lower  nature,  unsubdued  and  unaffected,  was  given  up  to 
thirst  of  gold,  and  plunder,  and  sensuality.  If  religion 
does  not  make  men  more  humane  than  they  would  be 
without  it,  it  makes  them  fatally  less  so ;  and  it  is  to  be 
feared  that  the  spirit  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  which  had 
oscillated  to  the  other  extreme,  and  had  again  crystallized 
into  a  formal  Antinomian  fanaticism,  reproduced  the  same 
fatal  results  as  those  in  which  the  Spaniards  had  set  them 
their  unworthy  precedent.  But  the  Elizabethan  naviga- 
tors, full  for  the  most  part  with  large  kindness,  wisdom, 
gentleness,  and  beauty,  bear  names  untainted,  as  far  as  we 
know,  with  a  single  crime  against  the  savages  of  America ; 
and  the  name  of  England  was  as  famous  in  the  Indian  seas 
as  that  of  Spain  was  infamous.  On  the  banks  of  the  Ori- 
noko  there  was  remembered  for  a  hundred  years  the 
noble  captain  who  had  come  there  from  the  great  queen 
beyond  the  seas ;  and  Raleigh  speaks  the  language  of  the 
heart  of  his  country,  when  he  urges  the  English  statesmen 
to  colonize  Guiana,  and  exults  in  the  glorious  hope  of  driv- 
ing the  white  marauder  into  the  Pacific,  and  restoring  the 
Incas  to  the  throne  of  Peru. 

Who  will  not  be  persuaded  (he  says)  that  now  at  length  the 
great  Judge  of  the  world  hath  heard  the  sighs,  groans,  and  lam- 
entations, hath  seen  the  tears  and  blood  of  so  many  millions  of 
innocent  men,  women,  and  children,  afflicted,  robbed,  reviled, 
branded  with  hot  irons,  roasted,  dismembered,  mangled,  stabbed, 
whipped,  racked,  scalded  with  hot  oil,  put  to  the  strapado,  ripped 
alive,  beheaded  in  sport,  drowned,  dashed  against  the  rocks,  fam- 
ished, devoured  by  mastiffs,  burned,  and  by  infinite  cruelties  con- 
jumed,  and  purposeth  to  scourge  and  plague  that  cursed  nation, 
and  to  take  the  yoke  of  servitude  from  that  distressed  people,  as 
free  by  nature  as  any  Christian  ? 

Poor  Raleigh  !  if  peace  and  comfort  in  this  world  were 


374  England's  Forgotten   Worthies. 

of  much  importance  to  him,  it  was  in  an  ill  day  that  he 
provoked  the  revenge  of  Spain.  The  strength  of  England 
was  needed  at  the  moment  at  its  own  door ;  the  Armada 
came,  and  there  was  no  means  of  executing  such  an  enter- 
prise. And  afterwards  the  throne  of  Elizabeth  was  filled 
by  a  Stuart,  and  Guiana  was  to  be  no  scene  of  glory  for 
Raleigh ;  rather,  as  later  historians  are  pleased  to  think,  it 
was  the  grave  of  his  reputation. 

But  the  hope  burned  clear  in  him  through  all  the  weary 
years  of  unjust  imprisonment ;  and  when  he  was  a  gray- 
headed  old  man,  the  base  son  of  a  bad  mother  used  it  to 
betray  him.  The  success  of  his  last  enterprise  was  made 
the  condition  under  which  he  was  to  be  pardoned  for  a 
crime  which  he  had  not  committed ;  and  its  success  de- 
pended, as  he  knew,  on  its  being  kept  secret  from  the 
Spaniards.  James  required  of  Raleigh  on  his  allegiance 
a  detail  of  what  he  proposed,  giving  him  at  the  same  time 
his  word  as  a  king  that  the  secret  should  be  safe  with  him. 
The  next  day  it  was  sweeping  out  of  the  port  of  London 
in  the  swiftest  of  the  Spanish  ships,  with  private  orders  to 
the  Governor  of  St.  Thomas  to  provoke  a  collision,  when 
Raleigh  should  arrive  there,  which  should  afterward  cost 
him  his  heart's  blood. 

We  modern  readers  may  run  rapidly  over  the  series  of 
epithets  under  which  Raleigh  has  catalogued  the  Indian 
sufferings,  hoping  that  they  are  exaggerated,  seeing  that 
they  are  horrible,  and  closing  our  eyes  against  them  with 
swiftest  haste  ;  but  it  was  not  so  when  every  epithet  sug- 
gested a  hundred  familiar  facts ;  and  some  of  these  (not 
resting  on  English  prejudice,  but  on  sad  Spanish  evidence, 
which  is  too  full  of  shame  and  sorrow  to  be  suspected) 
shall  be  given  in  this  place,  however  old  a  story  it  may  be 
thought ;  because,  as  we  said  above,  it  is  impossible  to  un- 
derstand the  actions  of  these  men,  unless  we  are  familiar 
with  the  feelings  of  which  their  hearts  were  full. 

The  massacres   tinder  Cortez  and   Pizarro,  terrible  as 


England's  Forgotten   Worthies.  876 

they  were,  were  not  the  occasion  which  stirred  the  deepest 
indignation.  They  had  the  excuse  of  what  might  be 
called,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  necessity,  and  of  the  des- 
perate position  of  small  bands  of  men  in  the  midst  of  ene- 
mies who  might  be  counted  by  millions.  And  in  De  Soto, 
when  he  burnt  his  guides  in  Florida  (it  was  his  practice, 
when  there  was  danger  of  treachery,  that  those  who  were 
left  alive  might  take  warning)  ;  or  in  Vasco  Nunnez, 
praying  to  the  Virgin  on  the  mountains  of  Darien,  and 
going  down  from  off  them  into  the  valleys  to  hunt  the 
Indian  caciques,  and  fling  them  alive  to  his  bloodhounds  ; 
there  was,  at  least,  with  all  this  fierceness  and  cruelty,  a 
desperate  courage  which  we  cannot  refuse  to  admire,  and 
which  mingles  with  and  corrects  our  horror.  It  is  the 

O 

refinement- of  the  Spaniard's  cruelty  in  the  settled  and  con- 
quered provinces,  excused  by  no  danger  and  provoked  by 
no  resistance,  the  details  of  which  witness  to  the  infernal 
coolness  with  which  it  was  perpetrated ;  and  the  great 
bearing  of  the  Indians  themselves  under  an  oppression 
which  they  despaired  of  resisting,  raises  the  whole  history 
to  the  rank  of  a  world-wide  tragedy,  in  which  the  nobler 
but  weaker  nature  was  crushed  under  a  malignant  force 
which  was  stronger  and  yet  meaner  than  itself.  Gold 
hunting  and  lust  were  the  two  passions  for  which  the 
Spaniards  cared ;  and  the  fate  of  the  Indian  women  was 
only  more  dreadful  than  that  of  the  men,  who  were  ganged 
and  chained  to  a  labor  in  the  mines  which  was  only  to 
cease  with  their  lives,  in  a  land  where  but  a  little  before 
they  had  lived  a  free  contented  people,  more  innocent  of 
crime  than  perhaps  any  people  upon  earth.  If  we  can 
conceive  what  our  own  feelings  would  be  —  if,  in  the  "  de- 
velopment of  the  mammalia,"  some  baser  but  more  power- 
ful race  than  man  were  to  appear  upon  this  planet,  and  we 
and  our  wives  and  children  at  our  own  happy  firesides 
Avere  degraded  from  our  freedom,  and  became  to  them 
what  the  lower  animals  are  to  us,  we  can  perhaps  realize 
the  feelings  of  the  enslaved  nations  of  Hispaniola. 


876  England*  Forgotten  Worthies* 

As  a  harsh  justification  of  slavery,  it  is  sometimes  urged 
that  men  who  do  not  deserve  to  be  slaves  will  prefer  death 
to  the  endurance  of  it ;  and  that  if  they  prize  their  liberty, 
it  is  always  in  their  power  to  assert  it  in  the  old  Roman 
fashion,  Tried  even  by  so  hard  a  rule,  the  Indians  vindi- 
cated their  right ;  and,  before  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  entire  group  of  the  Western  Islands  in  the 
hands  of  the  Spaniards,  containing,  when  Columbus  dis- 
covered them,  many  millions  of  inhabitants,  were  left  liter- 
ally desolate  from  suicide.  Of  the  anecdotes  of  this  terri- 
ble self-immolation,  as  they  were  then  known  in  England, 
here  are  a  few  out  of  many. 

The  first  is  simple,  and  a  specimen  of  the  ordinary 
method.  A  Yucatan  cacique,  who  was  forced  with  his  old 
subjects  to  labor  in  the  mines,  at  last  "  calling  those  miners 
into  an  house,  to  the  number  of  ninety-five,  he  thus  de- 
bateth  with  them  "  :  — 

"My  worthy  companions  and  friends,  why  desire  we  to  live 
any  longer  under  so  cruel  a  servitude  ?  Let  us  now  go  unto  the 
perpetual  seat  of  our  ancestors,  for  we  shall  there  have  rest  from 
these  intolerable  cares  and  grievances  which  we  endure  under  the 
subjection  of  the  unthankful.  Go  ye  before ;  I  will  presently  fol- 
low you."  Having  so  spoken,  he  held  out  whole  handfuls  of  those 
leaves  which  take  away  life,  prepared  for  the  purpose,  and  giving 
every  one  part  thereof,  being  kindled  to  suck  up  the  fume  ;  who 
obeyed  his  command,  the  king  and  his  chief  kinsmen  reserving 
the  last  place  for  themselves. 

We  speak  of  the  crime  of  suicide,  but  few  persons  will 
see  a  crime  in  this  sad  and  stately  leave-taking  of  a  life 
which  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  bear  with  unbroken 
hearts.  We  do  not  envy  the  Indian,  who,  with  Spaniards 
before  him  as  an  evidence  of  the  fruits  which  their  creed 
brought  forth,  deliberately  exchanged  for  it  the  old  religion 
of  his  country,  which  could  sustain  him  in  an  action  of 
such  melancholy  grandeur.  But  the  Indians  did  not  al- 
ways reply  to  their  oppressors  with  escaping  passively  be- 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  377 

yond  their  hands.  Here  is  a  story  with  matter  in  it  for  as 
rich  a  tragedy  as  OEdipus  or  Agamemnon,  and  in  its  stern 
and  tremendous  features,  more  nearly  resembling  them  than 
any  which  were  conceived  even  by  Shakespeare. 

An  officer  named  Orlando  had  taken  the  daughter  of  a 
Cuban  cacique  to  be  his  mistress.  She  was  with  child  by 
him,  but,  suspecting  her  of  being  engaged  in  some  other 
intrigue,  he  had  her  fastened  to  two  wooden  spits,  not  in- 
tending to  kill  her,  but  to  terrify  her ;  and  setting  her  be- 
fore the  fire,  he  ordered  that  she  should  be  turned  by  the 
servants  of  the  kitchen. 

The  maiden,  stricken  with  fear  through  the  cruelty  thereof,  and 
strange  kind  of  torment,  presently  gave  up  the  ghost.  The  ca- 
cique her  father,  understanding  the  matter,  took  thirty  of  his  men 
and  went  to  the  house  of  the  captain,  who  was  then  absent,  and 
slew  his  wife,  whom  he  had  married  after  that  wicked  act  commit- 
ted, and  the  women  who  were  companions  of  the  wife,  and  her 
servants  every  one.  Then  shutting  the  door  of  the  house,  and 
putting  fire  under  it,  he  burnt  himself  and  all  his  companions  that 
assisted  him,  together  with  the  captain's  dead  family  and  goods.  • 

This  is  no  fiction  or  poet's  romance.  It  is  a  tale  of 
wrath  and  revenge,  which  in  sober  dreadful  truth  enacted 
itself  upon  this  earth,  and  remains  among  the  eternal  rec- 
ords of  the  doings  of  mankind  upon  it.  As  some  relief  to 
its  most  terrible  features,  we  follow  it  with  a  story  which 
has  a  touch  in  it  of  diabolical  humor. 

The  slave-owners  finding  their  slaves  escaping  thus  un- 
prosperously  out  of  their  grasp,  set  themselves  to  find  a 
remedy  for  so  desperate  a  disease,  and  were  swift  to  avail 
themselves  of  any  weakness,  mental  or  bodily,  through 
which  to  retain  them  in  life.  One  of  these  proprietors 
being  informed  that  a  number  of  his  people  intended  to 
kill  themselves  on  a  certain  day,  at  a  particular  spot,  and- 
knowing  by  experience  that  they  were  too  likely  to  do  it, 
presented  himself  there  at  the  time  which  had  been  fixed 
upon,  and  telling  the  Indians  when  they  arrived  that  ho 


378  England's  Forgotten   Worthies. 

knew  their  intention,  and  that  it  was  vain  for  them  to  at- 
tempt to  keep  any  thing  a  secret  from  him,  he  ended  with 
saying,  that  he  had  come  there  to  kill  himself  with  them ; 
that  as  he.  had  used  them  ill  in  this  world,  he  might  use 
them  worse  in  the  next ;  "  with  which  he  did  dissuade 
them  presently  from  their  purpose."  With  what  efficacy 
such  believers  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  were  likely  to 
recommend  either  their  faith  or  their  God ;  rather,  how 
terribly  all  the  devotion  and  all  the  earnestness  with  which 
the  poor  priests  who  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  conquer- 
ors labored  to  recommend  it  were  shamed  and  paralyzed, 
they  themselves  too  bitterly  lament. 

It  was  idle  to  send  out  governor  after  governor  with  or- 
ders to  stay  such  practices.  They  had  but  to  arrive  on 
the  scene  to  become  infected  with  the  same  fever ;  or  if 
any  remnant  of  Castilian  honor,  or  any  faintest  echoes  of 
the  faith  which  they  professed,  still  flickered  in  a  few  of 
the  best  and  noblest,  they  could  but  look  on  with  folded 
hands  in  ineffectual  mourning ;  they  could  do  nothing 
without  soldiers,  and  the  soldiers  were  the  worst  offenders. 
Hispaniola  became  a  desert :  the  gold  was  in  the  mines, 
and  there  were  no  slaves  left  remaining  to  extract  it.  One 
means  which  the  Spaniards  dared  to  employ  to  supply  the 
vacancy,  brought  about  an  incident  which  in  its  piteous  pa- 
thos exceeds  any  story  we  have  ever  heard.  Crimes  and 
criminals  are  swept  away  by  time,  Nature  finds  an  antidote 
for  their  poison,  and  they  and  their  ill  consequences  alike 
are  blotted  out  and  perish.  If  we  do  not  forgive  the  vil- 
lain, at  least  we  cease  to  hate  him,  as  it  grows  more  clear 
to  us  thaf  he  injures  none  so  deeply  as  himself.  But  the 
6r)piw8r]<i  KdKia,  the  enormous  wickedness  by  which  hu- 
manity itself  has  been  outraged  and  disgraced,  we  cannot 
forgive  ;  we  cannot  cease  to  hate  that ;  the  years  roll  away 
but  the  tints  of  it  remain  on  the  pages  of  history,  deep 
and  horrible  as  the  day  on  which  they  were  entered 
there. 


England's  Forgotten   Worthies.  379 

When  the  Spaniards  understood  the  simple  opinion  of  the 
Yucatan  islanders  concerning  the  souls  of  their  departed,  which, 
after  their  sins  purged  in  the  cold  northern  mountains  should  pass 
into  the  south,  to  the  intent  that,  leaving  their  own  country  of 
their  own  accord,  they  might  suffer  themselves  to  be  brought  to 
Hispaniola,  they  did  persuade  those  poor  wretches,  that  they  came 
from  those  places  where  they  should  see  their  parents  and  chil- 
dren, and  all  their  kindred  and  friends  that  were  dead,  and 
should  enjoy  all  kinds  of  delights  with  the  embracements  and  frui- 
tion of  all  beloved  beings.  And  they,  being  infected  and  pos- 
sessed with  these  crafty  and  subtle  imaginations,  singing  and  re- 
joicing left  their  country,  and  followed  vain  and  idle  hope.  But 
when  they  saw  that  they  were  deceived,  and  neither  met  their 
parents  nor  any  that  they  desired,  but  were  compelled  to  undergo 
grievous  sovereignty  and  command,  and  to  endure  cruel  and  ex- 
treme labor,  they  either  slew  themselves,  or,  choosing  to  famish, 
gave  up  their  fair  spirits,  being  persuaded  by  no  reason  or  vio- 
lence to  take  food.  So  these  miserable  Yucatans  came  to  their 
end. 

It  was  once  more  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  the  Apostles. 
The  New  World  was  first  offered  to  the  holders  of  the  old 
traditions.  They  were  the  husbandmen  first  chosen  for  the 
new  vineyard,  and  blood  and  desolation  were  the  only  fruits 
which  they  reared  upon  it.  In  their  hands  it  was  becoming 
a  kingdom,  not  of  God,  but  of  the  devil,  and  a  sentence  of 
blight  went  out  against  them  and  against  their  works.  How 
fatally  it  has  worked,  let  modern  Spain  and  Spanish  Amer- 
ica bear  witness.  We  need  not  follow  further  the  history 
of  their  dealings  with  the  Indians.  For  their  colonies,  a 
fatality  appears  to  have  followed  all  attempts  at  Catholic 
colonization.  Like  shoots  from  an  old  decaying  tree  which 
no  skill  and  no  care  can  rear,  they  were  planted,  and  for  a 
while  they  might  seem  to  grow  ;  but  their  life  was  never 
more  than  a  lingering  death,  a  failure,  which  to  a  thinking 
person  would  outweigh  in  the  arguments  against  Catholi- 
cism whole  libraries  of  faultless  catenas,  and  a  consensus  pa' 
trum  unbroken  through  fifteen  centuries  for  the  supremacy 
of  St.  Peter. 


380  England's  Forgotten   Worthies. 

There  is  no  occasion  to  look  for  superstitious  causes  to 
explain  the  phenomenon.  The  Catholic  faith  had  ceased 
to  be  the  faith  of  the  large  mass  of  earnest  thinking  capable 
persons  ;  and  to  those  who  can  best  do  the  work,  all  work  in 
this  world  sooner  or  later  is  committed.  America  was  the 
natural  home  for  Protestants ;  persecuted  at  home,  they 
sought  a  place  where  they  might  worship  God  in  their  own 
way,  without  danger  of  stake  or  gibbet,  and  the  French 
Huguenots,  as  afterwards  the  English  Puritans,  early  found 
their  way  there.  The  fate  of  a  party  of  Coligny's  people, 
who  had  gone  out  as  settlers,  shall  be  the  last  of  these  stories, 
illustrating,  as  it  does  in  the  highest  degree,  the  wrath  and 
fury  with  which  the  passions  on  both  sides  were  boiling. 
A.  certain  John  Ribault,  with  about  400  companions,  had 
emigrated  to  Florida.  They  were  quiet,  inoffensive  people, 
and  lived  in  peace  there  several  years,  cultivating  the  soil, 
building  villages,  and  on  the  best  possible  terms  with  the 
natives.  Spain  was  at  the  time  at  peace  with  France  ;  we 
are,  therefore,  to  suppose  that  it  was  in  pursuance  of  the 
great  crusade,  in  which  they  might  feel  secure  of  the  secret, 
if  not  the  confessed,  sympathy  of  the  Guises,  that  a  power- 
ful Spanish  fleet  bore  down  upon  this  settlement.  The 
French  made  no  resistance,  and  they  were  seized  and 
flayed  alive,  and  their  bodies  hung  out  upon  the  trees,  with 
an  inscription  suspended  over  them,  "  Not  as  Frenchmen, 
but  as  heretics."  At  Paris  all  was  sweetness  and  silence. 
The  settlement  was  tranquilly  surrendered  to  the  same 
men  who  had  made  it  the  scene  of  their  atrocity ;  and  two 
years  later,  500  of  the  very  Spaniards  who  had  been  most 
active  in  the  murder  were  living  there  in  peaceable  posses- 
sion, in  two  forts  which  their  relation  with  the  natives  had 
obliged  them  to  build.  It  was  well  that  there  were  other 
Frenchmen  living,  of  whose  consciences  the  Court  had 
not  the  keeping,  and  who  were  able  on  emergencies  to  do 
what  was  right  without  consulting  it.  A  certain  priva- 
teer, named  Dominique  de  Gourges,  secretly  armed  and 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  381 

equipped  a  vessel  at  Rochelle,  and,  stealing  across  the  At- 
lantic, and  in  two  days  collecting  a  strong  party  of  Indians, 
he  came  down  suddenly  upon  the  forts,  and,  taking  them 
by  storm,  slew  or  afterwards  hanged  every  man  he  found 
there,  leaving  their  bodies  on  the  trees  on  which  they  had 
hanged  the  Huguenots,  with  their  own  inscription  reversed 
against  them,  —  "Not  as  Spaniards,  but  as  murderers." 
For  which  exploit,  well  deserving  of  all  honest  men's 
praise,  Dominique  de  Gourges  had  to  fly  his  country  for 
his  life ;  and,  coming  to  England,  was  received  with  honor- 
able welcome  by  Elizabeth. 

It  was  at  such  a  time,  and  to  take  their  part  amidst  such 
scenes  as  these,  that  the  English  navigators  appeared  along 
the  shores  of  South  America,  as  the  armed  soldiers  of  the 
Reformation,  and  as  the  avengers  of  humanity.  As  their 
enterprise  was  grand  and  lofty,  so  for  the  most  part  was  the 
manner  in  which  they  bore  themselves  worthy -of  it.  They 
were  no  nation  of  saints,  in  the  modern  sentimental  sense 
of  that  word  ;  they  were  prompt,  stern  men  —  more  ready 
ever  to  strike  an  enemy  than  to  parley  with  him ;  and, 
private  adventurers  as  they  all  were,  it  was  natural  enough 
that  private  rapacity  and  private  badness  should  be  found 
among  them  as  among  other  mortals.  Every  Englishman 
who  had  the  means  was  at  liberty  to  fit  out  a  ship  or  ships, 
and  if  he  could  produce  tolerable  vouchers  for  himself, 
received  at  once  a  commission  from  the  Court.  The  bat- 
tles of  England  were  fought  by  her  children,  at  their  own 
risk  and  cost,  and  they  were  at  liberty  to  repay  themselves 
the  expense  of  their  expeditions  by  plundering  at  the  cost 
of  the  national  enemy.  Thus,  of  course,  in  a  mixed  world, 
there  were  found  mixed  marauding  crews  of  scoundrels, 
who  played  the  game  which  a  century  later  was  played 
with  such  effect  by  the  pirates  of  the  Tortugas.  Negro 
hunters  too,  there  were,  and  a  bad  black  slave-trade  —  in 
tvhich  Elizabeth  herself,  being  hard  driven  for  money,  did 
not  disdain  to  invest  her  capital ;  but  on  the  whole,  and 


382  England's  Forgotten   Worthies. 

in  the  war  with  the  Spaniards,  as  in  the  war  with  the  ele- 
ments, the  conduct  and  character  of  the  English  sailors, 
considering  what  they  were  and  the  work  which  they  were 
sent  to  do,  present  us  all  through  that  age  with  such  a  pict- 
ure of  gallantry,  disinterestedness,  and  high  heroic  energy, 
as  has  never  been  overmatched  ;  the  more  remarkable,  as 
it  was  the  fruit  of  no  drill  or  discipline,  no  tradition,  no 
system,  no  organized  training,  but  was  the  free  native 
growth  of  a  noble  virgin  soil. 

Before  starting  on  an  expedition,  it  was  usual  for  the 
crew  and  the  officers  to  meet  and  arrange  among  them- 
selves a  series  of  articles  of  conduct,  to  which  they  bound 
themselves  by  a  formal  agreement,  the  entire  body  itself 
undertaking  to  see  to  their  observance.  It  is  quite  possible 
that  strong  religious  profession,  and  even  sincere  profession, 
might  be  accompanied,  as  it  was  in  the  Spaniards,  with 
every  thing  most  detestable.  It  is  not  sufficient  of  itself  to 
prove  that  their  actions  would  correspond  with  it,  but  it  is 
one  among  a  number  of  evidences  ;  and  coining  as  most  of 
these  men  come  before  us,  with  hands  clear  of  any  blood 
but  of  fair  and  open  enemies,  their  articles  may  pass  at 
least  as  indications  of  what  they  were. 

Here  we  have  a  few  instances :  — 

Richard  Hawkins's  ship's  company  was,  as  he  himself 
informs  us,  an  unusually  loose  one.  Nevertheless,  we  find 
them  "gathered  together  every 'morning  and  evening  to 
serve  God ; "  and  a  fire  on  board,  which  only  Hawkins's 
presence  of  mind  prevented  from  destroying  ship  and  crew 
together,  was  made  use  of  by  the  men  as  an  occasion  to 
banish  swearing  out  of  the  ship. 

With  a  general  consent  of  all  our  company,  it  was  ordained  that 
there  should  be  a  palmer  or  ferula  which  should  be  in  the  keeping 
of  him  who  was  taken  with  an  oath ;  and  that  he  who  had  the 
palmer  should  give  to  every  one  that  he  took  swearing,  a  palmada 
with  it  and  the  ferula ;  and  whosoever  at  the  time  of  evening  or 
morning  prayer  was  found  to  have  the  palmer,  should  have  three 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  383 

blows  given  him  by  the  captain  or  the  master  ;  and  that  he  should 
still  be  bound  to  free  himself  by  taking  another,  or  else  to  run  in 
danger  of  continuing  the  penalty,  which,  being  executed  a  few 
days,  reformed  the  vice,  so  that  in  three  days  together  was  not  oue 
oath  heard  to  be  sworn. 

The  regulations  for  Luke  Fox's  voyage  commence 
thus :  — 

For  as  much  as  the  good  success  and  prosperity  of  every  action 
doth  consist  in  the  due  service  and  glorifying  of  God,  knowing  that 
not  only  our  being  and  preservation,  but  the  prosperity  of  all  our 
actions  and  enterprises  do  immediately  depend  on  His  Almighty 
goodness  and  mercy ;  it  is  provided  — 

First,  that  all  the  company,  as  well  officers  as  others,  shall  duly 
repair  every  day  twice  at  the  call  of  the  bell  to  hear  public 
prayers  to  be  read,  such  as  are  authorized  by  the  Church,  and  that 
in  a  godly  and  devout  manner,  as  good  Christians  ought. 

Secondly,  that  no  man  shall  swear  by  the  name  of  God,  or  use 
any  profane  oath,  or  blaspheme  His  holy  name. 

To  symptoms  such  as  these,  we  cannot  but  assign  a  very 
different  value  when  they  are  the  spontaneous  growth  of 
common  minds,  unstimulated  by  sense  of  propriety  or  rules 
of  the  service,  or  other  official  influence,  lay  or  ecclesiastic, 
from  what  attaches  to  the  somewhat  similar  ceremonials  in 
which,  among  persons  whose  position  is  conspicuous,  im- 
portant enterprises  are  now  and  then  inaugurated. 

We  have  said  as  much  as  we  intend  to  say  of  the  treat- 
ment by  the  Spaniards  of  the  Indian  women.  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  is  commonly  represented  by  historians  as  rather 
defective,  if  he  was  remarkable  at  all,  on  the  moral  side  of 
his  character.  Yet  Raleigh  can  declare  proudly,  that  all 
the  time  he  was  on  the  Orinoko,  "  neither  by  force  nor 
other  means  had  any  of  his  men  intercourse  with  any 
woman  there  ; "  and  the  narrator  of  the  incidents  of  Ra- 
leigh's last  voyage  acquaints  his  correspondent  "  with  some 
particulars  touching  the  government  of  the  fleet,  which, 
although  other  men  in  their  voyages  .doubtless  in  some 


884  England's  Forgotten   Worthies. 

measure  observed,  yet  in  all  the  great  volumes  which  have 
been  written  touching  voyages,  there  is  no  precedent  of  so 
godly  severe  and  martial  government,  which  not  only  in 
itself  is  laudable  and  worthy  of  imitation,  but  is  also  fit  to 
be  written  and  engraven  on  every  man's  soul  that  coveteth 
to  do  honor  to  his  country." 

Once  more,  the  modern  theory  of  Drake  is,  as  we  said 
above,  that  he  was  a  gentleman-like  pirate  on  a  large  scale, 
who  is  indebted  for  the  place  which  he  fills  in  history  to 
the  indistinct  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  prevailing  in  the 
unenlightened  age  in  which  he  lived,  and  who  therefore 
demands  all  the  toleration  of  our  own  enlarged  humanity 
to  allow  him  to  remain  there.  Let  us  see  how  the  following 
incident  can  be  made  to  coincide  with  this  hypothesis  :  — 

A  few  days  after  clearing  the  Channel  on  his  first  great 
voyage,  he  fell  in  with  a  small  Spanish  ship,  which  he  took 
for  a  prize.  He  committed  the  care  of  it  to  a  certain  Mr. 
Doughtie,  a  person  much  trusted  by,  and  personally  very 
dear  to  him,  and  this  second  vessel  was  to  follow  him  as  a 
tender. 

In  dangerous  expeditions  into  unknown  seas,  a  second 
smaller  ship  was  often  indispensable  to  success  but  many 
finely  intended  enterprises  were  ruined  by  the  cowardice 
of  the  officers  to  whom  such  ships  were  intrusted ;  who 
shrank  as  danger  thickened,  and  again  and  again  took  ad- 
vantage of  darkness  or  heavy  weather  to  make  sail  for 
England  and  forsake  their  commander.  Hawkins  twice 
suffered  in  this  way  ;  so  did  Sir  Humfrey  Gilbert ;  and, 
although  Drake's  own  kind  feeling  for  his  old  friend  has 
prevented  him  from  leaving  an  exact  account  of  his  of- 
fense, we  gather  from  the  scattered  hints  which  are  let  fall, 
that  he,  too,  was  meditating  a  similar  piece  of  treason. 
However,  it  may  or  may  not  have  been  thus.  But  when  at 
Port  St.  Julien,  "  our  General,"  says  one  of  the  crew,  — 

Began  to  inquire  diligently  of  the  actions  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Doughtie,  and  found  them  not  to  be  such  as  he  looked  for,  but 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  .    385 

tending  rather  to  contention  or  mutiny,  or  some  other  disorder, 
whereby,  without  redress,  the  success  of  the  voyage  might  greatly 
have  been  hazarded.  Whereupon  the  company  was  called  to- 
gether and  made  acquainted  with  the  particulars  of  the  cause, 
which  were  found,  partly  by  Mr.  Doughtie's  own  confession,  asd 
partly  by  the  evidence  of  the  fact,  to  be  true,  which,  when  our 
General  saw,  although  his  private  affection  to  Mr.  Doughtie  (as  he 
then,  in  the  presence  of  us  all,  sacredly  protested)  was  great,  yet 
the  care  which  he  had  of  the  state  of  the  voyage,  of  the  expecta- 
tion of  Her  Majesty,  and  of  the  honor  of  his  country,  did  more 
touch  him,  as  indeed  it  ought,  than  the  private  respect  of  one  man ; 
so  that  the  cause  being  thoroughly  heard,  and  all  things  done  in 
good  order  as  near  as  might  be  to  the  course  of  our  law  in  Eng- 
land, it  was  concluded  that  Mr.  Doughtie  should  receive  punish- 
ment according  to  the  quality  of  the  offense.  And  he,  seeing  no 
remedy  but  patience  for  himself,  desired  before  his  death  to  receive 
the  communion,  which  he  did  at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Fletcher,  our 
minister,  and  our  General  himself  accompanied  him  in  that  holy 
action,  which,  being  done,  and  the  place  of  execution  made  ready, 
he,  having  embraced  our  General,  and  taken  leave  of  all  the  com- 
pany, with  prayers  for  the  Queen's  Majesty  and  our  realm,  in 
quiet  sort,  laid  his  head  to  the  block,  where  he  ended  his  life.  This 
being  done,  our  General  made  divers  speeches  to  the  whole  com- 
pany, persuading  us  to  unity,  obedience,  love,  and  regard  of  our 
voyage,  and  for  the  better  confirmation  thereof,  willed  every  man 
the  next  Sunday  following  to  prepare  himself  to  receive  the  com- 
munion, as  Christian  brethren  and  friends  ought  to  do,  which  was 
done  in  very  reverent  sort,  and  so  with  good  contentment  every 
man  went  about  his  business. 

The  simple  majesty  of  this  anecdote  can  gain  nothing 
from  any  comment  which  we  might  offer  upon  it.  The 
creAV  of  a  common  English  ship  organizing,  of  their  own 
free  motion,  on  that  wild  shore,  a  judgment  hall  more 
grand  and  awful  than  any  most  elaborate  law  court,  is  not 
to  be  reconciled  with  the  pirate  theory.  Drake,  it  is  time, 
appropriated  and  brought  home  a  million  and  a  half  of 
Spanish  treasure,  while  England  and  Spain  were  at  peace. 
He  took  that  treasure  because  for  many  years  the  officers 
25 


386  England's  Forgotten  Worthies. 

of  the  Inquisition  had  made  free  at  their  pleasure  with  the 
lives  and  goods  of  English  merchants  and  seamen.  The 
king  of  Spain,  when  appealed  to,  had  replied  that  he  had 
no  power  over  the  Holy  House  ;  and  it  was  necessary  to 
make  the  king  of  Spain,  or  the  Inquisition,  or  whoever 
were  the  parties  responsible,  feel  that  they  could  not  play 
their  pious  pranks  with  impunity.  When  Drake  seized 
the  bullion  at  Panama,  he  sent  word  to  the  viceroy  that  he 
should  now  learn  to  respect  the  properties  of  English  sub- 
jects ;  and  he  added,  that  if  four  English  sailors,  who  were 
prisoners  in  Mexico,  were  molested,  he  would  execute  2000 
Spaniards  and  send  the  viceroy  their  heads.  Spain  and 
England  were  at  peace,  but  Popery  and  Protestantism 
were  at  war  —  deep,  deadly,  and  irreconcilable. 

Wherever  we  find  them  they  are  still  the  same.  In  the 
courts  of  Japan  or  of  China ;  fighting  Spaniards  in  the 
Pacific,  or  prisoners  among  the  Algerines  ;  founding  colo- 
nies which  by  and  by  were  to  grow  into  enormous  Trans- 
atlantic republics,  or  exploring  in  crazy  pinnaces  the  fierce 
latitudes  of  the  Polar  seas,  —  they  are  the  same  indomi- 
table God-fearing  men  whose  life  was  one  great  liturgy. 
"  The  ice  was  strong,  but  God  was  stronger,"  says  one  of 
Frobisher's  men,  after  grinding  a  night  and  a  day  among 
the  icebergs,  not  waiting  for  God  to  come  down  and  split 
the  ice  for  them,  but  toiling  through  the  long  hours,  him- 
self and  the  rest  fending  off  the  vessel  with  poles  and 
planks,  with  death  glaring  at  them  out  of  the  rocks.  Ice- 
bergs were  strong,  Spaniards  were  strong,  and  storms,  and 
corsairs,  and  rocks,  and  reefs,  which  no  chart  had  then 
noted  —  they  were  all  strong ;  but  God  was  stronger,  and 
that  was  all  which  they  cared  to  know. 

Out  of  the  vast  number  of  illustrations  it  is  difficult  to 
make  wise  selections,  but  the  attention  floats  loosely  over 
generalities,  and  only  individual  instances  can  seize  it  and. 
hold  it  fast.  We  shall  attempt  to  bring  our  readers  face  to 
face  with  some  of  these  men  ±  not,  of  course,  to  write  their 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  387 

biographies,  but  to  sketch  the  details  of  a  few  scenes,  in 
the  hope  that  they  may  tempt  those  under  whose  eyes  they 
may  fall  to  look  for  themselves  to  complete  the  perfect 
figure. 

Some  two  miles  above  the  port  of  Dartmouth,  once 
among  the  most  important  harbors  in  England,  on  a  pro- 
jecting angle  of  land  which  runs  out  into  river  at  the 
head  of  one  of  its  most  beautiful  reaches,  there  has  stood 
for  some  centuries  the  Manor  House  of  Greenaway.  The 
water  runs  deep  all  the  way  to  it  from  the  sea,  and  the 
largest  vessels  may  ride  with  safety  within  a  stone's  throw 
of  the  windows.  In  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury there  must  have  met,  in  the  hall  of  this  mansion,  a  party 
as  remarkable  as  could  have  been  found  any  where  in  Eng- 
land. Humfrey  and  Adrian  Gilbert,  with  their  half-brother, 
Walter  Raleigh,  here,  when  little  boys,  played  at  sailors  in 
the  reaches  of  Long  Stream ;  in  the  summer  evenings 
doubtless  rowing  down  with  the  tide  to  the  port,  and  won- 
dering at  the  quaint  figure-heads  and  carved  prows  of  the 
ships  which  thronged  it ;  or  climbing  on  board,  and  listen- 
ing, with  hearts  beating,  to  the  mariners'  tales  of  the  new 
earth  beyond  the  sunset.  And  here  in  later  life,  matured 
men,  whose  boyish  dreams  had  become  heroic  action,  they 
used  again  to  meet  in  the  intervals  of  quiet,  and  the  rock 
is  shown  underneath  the  house  where  Raleigh  smoked 
the  first  tobacco.  Another  remarkable  man,  of  whom  we 
shall  presently  speak  more  closely,  could  not  fail  to  have 
made  a  fourth  at  these  meetings.  A  sailor-boy  of  Sand- 
wich, the  adjoining  parish,  John  Davis,  showed  early  a 
genius  which  could  not  have  escaped  the  eye  of  such 
neighbors,  and  in  the  atmosphere  of  Greenaway  he  learned 
to  be  as  noble  as  the  Gilberts,  and  as  tender  and  delicate 
as  Raleigh.  Of  this  party,  for  the  present  we  Confine  our- 
selves to  the  host  and  owner,  Humfrey  Gilbert,  knighted 
afterwards  by  Elizabeth.  Led  by  the  scenes  of  his  childhood 
to  the  sea  and  to  sea  adventures,  and  afterwards,  as  his  mind 


388  England's  Forgotten   Wort/tic.*. 

unfolded,  to  study  his  profession  scientifically,  we  find  him 
as  soon  as  he  was  old  enough  to  think  for  himself,  or  make 
others  listen  to  him,  "  amending  the  great  errors  of  naval 
sea-cards,  whose  common  fault  is  to  make  the  degree  of 
longitude  in  every  latitude  of  one  common  bigness ; "  in- 
venting instruments  for  taking  observations,  studying  the 
form  of  the  earth,  and  convincing  himself  that  there  was 
a  northwest  passage,  and  studying  the  necessities  of  his 
country,  and  discovering  the  remedies  for  them  in  coloniza- 
tion and  extended  markets  for  home  manufactures.  Gil- 
bert was  examined  before  the  Queen's  Majesty  and  the 
Privy  Council,  and  the  record  of  his  examination  he  has 
himself  left  to  us  in  a  paper  which  he  afterwards  drew 
up,  and  strange  enough  reading  it  is.  The  most  admi- 
rable conclusions  stand  side  by  side  with  the  wildest  con- 
jectures. 

Homer  and  Aristotle  are  pressed  into  service  to  prove 
that  the  ocean  runs  round  the  three  old  continents,  and 
that  America  therefore  is  necessarily  an  island.  The  Gulf 
Stream,  which  he  had  carefully  observed,  eked  out  by  a 
theory  of  the  primum  mobile,  is  made  to  demonstrate  a 
channel  to  the  north,  corresponding  to  Magellan's  Straits 
in  the  south,  Gilbert  believing,  in  common  with  almost 
every  one  of  his  day,  that  these  straits  were  the  only  open- 
ing into  the  Pacific,  and  the  land  to  the  south  was  un- 
broken to  the  Pole.  He  prophesies  a  market  in  the  East 
for  our  manufactured  linen  and  calicos :  — 

The  Easterns  greatly  prizing  the  same,  as  appeareth  in  Hester, 
where  the  pomp  is  expressed  of  the  great  King  of  India,  Ahasue- 
rus,  who  matched  the  colored  clothes  wherewith  his  houses  and 
tents  were  appareled,  with  gold  and  silver,  as  part  of  his  greatest 
treasure. 

These  and  other  such  arguments  were  the  best  analysis 
which  Sir  Humfrey  had  to  offer  of  the  spirit  which  he  felt 
to  be  working  in  him.  We  may  think  what  we  please  of 
them  ;  but  we  can  have  but  one  thought  of  the  great  grand 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  389 

words  with  which  the  memorial  concludes,  and  they  a.x>ne 
would  explain  the  love  which  Elizabeth  bore  him  :  — 

Never,  therefore,  mislike  with  me  for  taking  in  hand  any  laud- 
able and  honest  enterprise,  for  if  through  pleasure  or  idleness  we 
purchase  shame,  the  pleasure  vanisheth,  but  the  shame  abideth 
forever. 

Give  me  leave,  therefore,  without  offense,  always  to  live  and  die 
in  this  mind  :  that  he  is  not  worthy  to  live  at  all  that  for  fear  or 
danger  of  death,  shunneth  his  country's  service  and  his  own  honor, 
seeing  that  death  is  inevitable  and  the  fame  of  virtue  immortal, 
wherefore  in  this  behalf  mutare  vel  timers  sperno. 

Two  voyages  which  he  undertook  at  his  own  cost,  which 
shattered  his  fortune,  and  failed,  as  they  naturally  might, 
since  inefficient  help  or  mutiny  of  subordinates,  or  other 
disorders,  are  inevitable  conditions  under  which  more  or 
less  great  men  must  be  content  to  see  their  great  thoughts 
mutilated  by  the  feebleness  of  their  instruments,  did  not 
dishearten  him,  and  in  June,  1583,  a  last  fleet  of  five  ships 
sailed  from  the  port  of  Dartmouth,  with  commission  from 
the  queen  to  discover  and  take  possession  from  latitude  45° 
to  50°  North  —  a  voyage  not  a  little  noteworthy,  there  be- 
ing planted  in  the  course  of  it  the  first  English  colony  west 
of  the  Atlantic.  Elizabeth  had  a  foreboding  that  she 

O 

would  never  see  him  again.  She  sent  him  a  jewel  as  a  last 
token  of  her  favor,  and  she  desired  Raleigh  to  have  his 
picture  taken  before  he  went. 

The  history  of  the  voyage  was  written  by  a  Mr.  Edward 
Hayes,  of  Dartmouth,  one  of  the  principal  actors  in  it,  and 
as  a  composition  it  is  more  remarkable  for  fine  writing 
than  any  very  commendable  thought  in  the  author.  But 
Sir  Humfrey's  nature  shines  through  the  infirmity  of  his 
chronicler ;  and  in  the  end,  indeed,  Mr.  Hayes  himself  is 
jsiibdued  into  a  better  mind.  He  had  lost  money  by  the 
voyage,  and  we  will  hope  his  higher  nature  was  only  un- 
der a  temporary  eclipse.  The  fleet  consisted  (it  is  well  to 
observe  the  ships  and  the  size  of  them)  of  the  Delight, 


390  England's  Forgotten   Worthies. 

120  tons;  the  bark  Raleigh,  200  tons  (this  ship  deserted 
off  the  Land's  End)  ;  the  Golden  Hinde  and  the  Swallow, 
40  tons  each;  and  the  Squirrel,  which  was  called  the 
frigate,  ]0  tons.  For  the  uninitiated  in  such  matters, 
we  may  add,  that  if  in  a  vessel  the  size  of  the  last,  a 
member  of  the  Yacht  Club  would  consider  that  he  had 
earned  a  club-room  immortality  if  he  had  ventured  a 
run  in  the  depth  of  summer  from  Cowes  to  the  Channel 
Islands. 

We  were  in  all  (says  Mr.  Hayes)  260  men,  among  whom  we 
had  of  every  faculty  good  choice.  Besides,  for  solace  of  our  own 
people,  and  allurement  of  the  savages,  we  were  provided  of  music 
in  good  variety,  not  omitting  the  least  toys,  as  morris-dancers, 
hobby-horses,  and  May-like  conceits  to  delight  the  savage  people. 

The  expedition  reached  Newfoundland  without  accident. 
St.  John's  was  taken  possession  of,  and  a  colony  left  there  ; 
and  Sir  Humfrey  then  set  out  exploring  along  the  American 
coast  to  the  south,  he  himself  doing  all  the  work  in  his  lit- 
tle 10-ton  cutter,  the  service  being  too  dangerous  for  the 
larger  vessels  to  venture  on.  One  of  these  had  remained 
at  St.  John's.  He  was  now  accompanied  only  by  the  De- 
light and  the  Golden  Hinde,  and  these  two  keeping  as 
near  the  shore  as  they  dared,  he  spent  what  remained  of 
the  summer  examining  every  creek  and  bay,  marking  the 
soundings,  taking  the  bearings  of  the  possible  harbors,  and 
risking  his  life,  as  every  hour  he  was  obliged  to  risk  it  in 
such  a  service,  in  thus  leading,  as  it  were,  the  forlorn  hope 
in  the  conquest  of  the  New  World.  How  dangerous  it  was 
we  shall  presently  see.  It  was  towards  the  end  of  August. 

The  evening  was  fair  and  pleasant,  yet  not  without  token  of 
storm  to  ensue,  and  most  part  of  this  Wednesday  night,  like  the 
swan  that  singeth  before  her  death,  they  in  the  Delight  contin- 
ued in  sounding  of  drums  and  trumpets  and  fifes,  also  winding  the 
cornets  and  hautboys,  and  in  the  end  of  their  jollity  left  with  th« 
battell  and  rinmns  of  doleful  knells. 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  391 

Two  days  after  came  the  storm ;  the  Delight  struck 
upon  a  bank,  and  went  down  in  sight  of  the  other  vessels, 
which  were  unable  to  render  her  any  help.  Sir  Humfrey's 
papers,  among  other  things,  were  all  lost  in  her ;  at  the 
time  considered  by  him  an  irreparable  misfortune.  But 
it  was  little  matter :  he  was  never  to  need  them.  The 
Golden  Hincle  and  the  Squirrel  were  now  left  alone  of 
the  five  ships.  The  provisions  were  running  short,  and  the 
summer  season  was  closing.  Both  crews  were  on  short 
allowance  ;  and  with  much  difficulty  Sir  Humfrey  was  pre- 
vailed upon  to  be  satisfied  for  the  present  with  what  he 
had  done,  and  to  lay  off  for  England.- 

So  upon  Saturday,  in  the  afternoon,  the  31st  of  August,  we 
changed  our  course,  and  returned  back  for  England,  at  which 
very  instant,  even  in  winding  about,  there  passed  along  between 
us  and  the  land,  which  we  now  forsook,  a  very  lion,  to  our  seem- 
ing, in  shape,  hair,  and  color ;  not  swimming  after  the  manner  of 
a  beast  by  moving  of  his  feet,  but  rather  sliding  upon  the  water 
with  his  whole  body,  except  his  legs,  in  sight,  neither  yet  diving 
under  and  again  rising  as  the  manner  is  of  whales,  porpoises,  and 
other  fish,  but  confidently  showing  himself  without  hiding,  not- 
withstanding that  we  presented  ourselves  in  open  view  and  gest- 
ure to  amaze  him.  Thus  he  passed  along,  turning  his  head  to 
and  fro,  yawning  and  gaping  wide,  with  ougly  demonstration  of 
long  teeth  and  glaring  eyes;  and  to  bidde  us  farewell,  coming 
right  against  the  Hinde,  he  sent  forth  a  horrible  voice,  roaring 
and  bellowing  as  doth  a  lion,  which  spectacle  we  all  beheld  so  far 
as  we  were  able  to  discern  the  same,  as  men  prone  to  wonder  at 
every  strange  thing.  What  opinion  others  had  thereof,  and 
chiefly  the  General  himself,  I  forbear  to  deliver.  But  he  took  it 
for  Bonum  Omen,  rejoicing  that  he  was  to  war  against  such  an 
enemy,  if  it  were  the  devil. 

We  have  no  doubt  that  he  did  think  it  was  the  devil ; 
men  in  those  days  believing  really  that  evil  was  more  than 
a  principle  or  a  necessary  accident,  and  that  in  all  their 
labor  for  God  and  for  right,  they  must  make  their  account 
to  have  to  fight  with  the  devil  in  his  proper  person.  But 


392  England's  Forgotten  Worthier 

if  we  are  to  call  it  superstition,  and  if  this  wore  no  devil  in 
the  form  of  a  roaring  lion,  but  a  mere  great  seal  or  sea- 
lion,  it  is  a  more  innocent  superstition  to  impersonate  so 
real  a  power,  and  it  requires  a  bolder  heart  to  rise  up 
against  it  and  defy  it  in  its  living  terror,  than  to  sublimate 
it  away  into  a  philosophical  principle,  and  to  forget  to  bat- 
tle with  it  in  speculating  on  its  origin  and  nature.  But  to 
follow  the  brave  Sir  Humfrey,  whose  work  of  fighting  with 
the  devil  was  now  over,  and  who  was  passing  to  his  reward. 
The  2d  of  September  the  General  came  on  board  the 
Golden  Hinde  "  to  make  merry  with  us."  He  greatly  de- 
plored the  loss  of  his  books  and  papers,  but  he  was  full 
of  confidence  from  what  he  had  seen,  and  talked  with 
eagerness  and  warmth  of  the  new  expedition  for  the  fol- 
lowing spring.  Apocryphal  gold-mines  still  occupying  the 
minds  of  Mr.  Hayes  and  others,  they  were  persuaded  that 
Sir  Humfrey  was  keeping  to  himself  some  such  discovery 
which  he  had  secretly  made,  and  they  tried  hard  to  extract 
it  from  him.  They  could  make  nothing,  however,  of  his 
odd,  ironical  answers,  and  their  sorrow  at  the  catastrophe 
which  followed  is  sadly  blended  with  disappointment  that 
such  a  secret  should  have  perished.  Sir  Humfrey  doubt- 
less saw  America  with  other  eyes  than  theirs,  and  gold- 
mines richer  than  California  in  its  huge  rivers  and  sa- 
vannas. 

Leaving  the  issue  of  this  good  hope  (about  the  gold),  (contin- 
ues Mr.  Hayes),  to  God,  -who  only  knoweth  the  truth  thereof,  I 
will  hasten  to  the  end  of  this  tragedy,  which  must  be  knit  up  in 
the  person  of  our  General,  and  as  it  was  God's  ordinance  upon 
him,  even  so  the  vehement  persuasion  of  his  friends  could  noth- 
ing avail  to  divert  him  from  his  willful  resolution  of  going  in  his 
frigate ;  and  when  he  was  entreated  by  the  captain,  master,  and 
others,  his  well-wishers  in  the  Hinde,  not  to  venture,  this  was  his 
answer  —  "I  will  not  forsake  my  little  company  going  homewardsi 
with  whom  I  have  passed  so  ma-'iy  storms  and  perils." 

Two  thirds  of  the  wav  home  thev  met  foul  weather  and 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  893 

terrible  seas,  "  breaking  short  and  pyramidwise."  Men 
who  had  all  their  lives  "  occupied  the  sea  "  had  never  seen 
.  it  more  outrageous.  "  We  had  also  upon  our  mainyard  an 
apparition  of  a  little  fier  by  night,  which  seamen  do  call 
Castor  and  Pollux." 

Monday,  the  ninth  of  September,  in  the  afternoon,  the  frigato 
was  near  cast  away  oppressed  by  waves,  but  at  that  time  recov- 
ered, and  giving  forth  signs  of  joy,  the  General,  sitting  abaft  with 
a  book  in  his  hand,  cried  out  unto  us  in  the  Hinde  so  often  as 
we  did  approach  within  hearing,  "  We  are  as  near  to  heaven  by 
sea  as  by  land."  reiterating  the  same  speech,  well  beseeming  a 
soldier  resolute  in  Jesus  Christ,  as  I  can  testify  that  he  was.  The 
same  Monday  night,  about  twelve  of  the  clock,  or  not  long  after, 
the  frigate  being  ahead  of  us  in  the  Golden  Hinde,  suddenly 
her  lights  were  out,  whereof  as  it  were  in  a  moment  we  lost  the 
sight ;  and  withal  our  watch  cried,  "  The  General  was  cast  away," 
w-hich  was  too  true. 

Thus  faithfully  (concludes  Mr.  Hayes,  in  some  degree  rising 
above  himself)  I  have  related  this  story,  wherein  some  spark  of 
the  knight's  virtues,  though  he  be  extinguished,  may  happily  ap- 
pear; he  remaining  resolute  to  a  purpose  honest  and  godly  as  was 
this,  to  discover,  possess,  and  reduce  unto  the  service  of  God  and 
Christian  piety,  those  remote  and  heathen  countries  of  America. 
Such  is  the  infinite  bounty  of  God,  who  from  every  evil  deriveth 
good,  that  fruit  may  grow  in  time  of  our  travelling  in  these  North- 
western lands  (as  has  it  not  grown  ?),  and  the  crosses,  turmoils, 
and  afflictions,  both  in  the  preparation  and  execution  of  the  voy- 
age, did  correct  the  intemperate  humors  which  before  we  noted  to 
be  in  this  gentleman,  and  made  unsavory  and  less  delightful  hia 
other  manifold  virtues. 

Thus  as  he  was  refined  and  made  nearer  unto  the  image  of 
God,  so  it  pleased  the  Divine  will  to  resume  him  unto  Himself, 
whither  both  his  and  every  other  high  and  noble  mind  have  al- 
ways aspired. 

Such  was  Sir  Humfrey  Gilbert ;  still  in  the  prime  of  his 
years  when  the  Atlantic  swallowed  him.  Like  the  gleam 
of  a  landscape  lit  suddenly  for  a  moment  by  the  lightning, 
these  few  scenes  flash  down  to  us  across  the  centuries  ; 


894  England's  Forgotten  Worthies. 

but  what  a  life  must  that  have  been  of  which  this  was  the 
conclusion  !  "We  have  glimpses  of  him  a  few  years  earlier, 
when  he  won  his  spurs  in  Ireland  —  won  them  by  deeds 
which  to  us  seem  terrible  in  their  ruthlessness,  but  which 
won  the  applause  of  Sir  Henry  Sidney  as  too  high  for 
praise  or  even  reward.  Checkered  like  all  of  us  with  lines 
of  light  and  darkness,  he  was  nevertheless  one  of  a  race 
which  has  ceased  to  be.  We  look  round  for  them,  and  we 
can  hardly  believe  that  the  same  blood  is  flowing  in  our 
veins.  Brave  we  may  still  be,  and  strong  perhaps  as  they, 
but  the  high  moral  grace  which  made  bravery  and  strength 
so  beautiful  is  departed  from  us  forever. 

Our  space  is  sadly  limited  for  historical  portrait  paint- 
ing ;  but  we  must  find  room  for  another  of  that  Greena- 
way  party  whose  nature  was  as  fine  as  that  of  Gilbert,  and 
who  intellectually  was  more  largely  gifted.  The  latter  was 
drowned  in  1583.  In  1585  John  Davis  left  Dartmouth  on 
his  first  voyage  into  the  Polar  seas ;  and  twice  subse- 
quently he  went  again,  venturing  in  small,  ill-equipped  ves- 
sels of  thirty  or  forty  tons  into  the  most  dangerous  seas. 
These  voyages  were  as  remarkable  for  their  success  as  for 
the  daring  with  which  they  were  accomplished,  and  Davis's 
epitaph  is  written  on  the  map  of  the  world,  where  his  name 
still  remains  to  commemorate  his  discoveries.  Brave  as 
he  was,  he  is  distinguished  by  a  peculiar  and  exquisite 
sweetiiess  of  nature,  which,  from  many  little  facts  of  his 
life,  seems  to  have  affected  every  one  with  whom  he  came 
in  contact  in  a  remarkable  degree.  We  find  men,  for  the 
love  of  Master  Davis,  leaving  their  firesides 'to  sail  with 
him,  without  other  hope  or  motion ;  we  find  silver  bullets 
cast  to  shoot  him  in  a -mutiny;  the  hard  rude  natures  of 
the  mutineers  being  awed  by  something  in  his  carriage 
which  was  not  like  that  of  a  common  man.  He  has  writ- 
ten the  account  of  one  of  his  northern  voyages  himself} 
one  of  those,  by  the  by,  which  the  Hakluyt  Society  have 
mutilated  ;  and  there  is  an  imaginative  beauty  in  it,  and  a 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  395 

rich  delicacy  of  expression,  which  is  called  out  in  him  by 
the  first  sight  of  strange  lands  and  things  and  people. 

To  show  what  he  was,  we  should  have  preferred,  if  pos- 
sible, to  have  taken  the  story  of  his  expedition  into  the 
South  Seas,  in  which,  under  circumstances  of  singular  dif- 
ficulty, he  was  deserted  by  Candish,  under  whom  he  had 
sailed ;  and  after  inconceivable  trials  from  famine,  mutiny, 
and  storm,  ultimately  saved  himself  and  his  ship,  and  such 
of  the  crew  as  had  chosen  to  submit  to  his  orders.  But  it 
is  a  long  history,  and  will  not  admit  of  being  curtailed. 
As  an  instance  of  the  stuff  of  which  it  was  composed,  he 
ran  back  in  the  black  night  in  a  gale  of  wind  through  the 
Straits  of  Magellan,  by  a  chart  which  he  had  made  with  the 
eye  in  passing  np.  His  anchors  were  lost  or  broken ;  the 
cables  were  parted.  He  could  not  bring  up  the  ship ; 
there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  run,  and  he  carried  her 
safe  through  along  a  channel  often  not  three  miles  broad, 
sixty  miles  from  end  to  end,  and  twisting  like  the  reaches 
of  a  river. 

For  the  present,  however,  we  are  forced  to  content  our- 
selves with  a  few  sketches  out  of  the  northwest  voyages. 
Here  is  one,  for  instance,  which  shows  how  an  English- 
man could  deal  with  the  Indians.  Davis  had  landed  at 
Gilbert's  Sound,  and  gone  up  the  country  exploring.  On 
his  return  he  found  his  crew  loud  in  complaints  of  the 
thievish  propensities  of  the  natives,  and  urgent  to  have  an 
example  made  of  some  of  them.  On  the  next  occasion  he 
fired  a  gun  at  them  with  blank  cartridge  ;  but  their  nature 
was  still  too  strong  for  them. 

Seeing  iron  (he  says),  they  could  in  no  case  forbear  stealing  ; 
which,  when  I  perceived,  it  did  but  minister  to  me  occasion  of 
laughter  to  see  their  simplicity,  and  I  willed  that  they  should  not 
be  hardly  used,  but  that  our  company  should  be  more  diligent  to 
keep  their  things,  supposing  it  to  be  very  hard  in  so  short  a  time 
to  make  them  know  their  evils. 

In  his  own  way,  however,  he  took  an  opportunity  of  ad- 


896  England's  Forgotten  Worthies. 

ministering  a  lesson  to  them  of  a  more  wholesome  kind 
than  could  be  given  with  gunpowder  and  bullets.  Like 
the  rest  of  his  countrymen,  he  believed  the  savage  Indians 
in  their  idolatries  to  be  worshipers  of  the  devil.  "  They 
are  witches,"  he  says ;  "  they  have  images  in  great  store, 
and  use  many  kinds  of  enchantments."  And  these  en- 
chantments they  tried  on  one  occasion  to  put  in  force 
against  himself  and  his  crew. 

Being  on  shore  on  the  4th  day  of  July,  one  of  them  made  a 
long  oration,  and  then  kindled  a  fire,  into  which,  with  many 
strange  words  and  gestures,  he  put  divers  things,  which  we  sup- 
posed to  be  a  sacrifice.  Myself  and  certain  of  my  company 
standing  by,  they  desired  us  to  go  into  the  smoke.  I  desired  them 
to  go  into  the  smoke,  which  they  would  by  no  means  do.  I  then 
took  one  of  them  and  thrust  him  into  the  smoke,  and  willed  one 
of  my  company  to  tread  out  the  fire,  and  spurn  it  into  the  sea, 
which  was  done  to  show  them  that  we  did  contemn  their  sorceries. 

It  is  a  very  English  story  —  exactly  what  a  modern 
Englishman  would  do ;  only,  perhaps,  not  believing  that 
there  was  any  real  devil  in  the  case,  which  makes  a  differ- 
ence. However,  real  or  not  real,  after  seeing  him  patiently 
put  up  with  such  an  injury,  we  will  hope  the  poor  Green- 
lander  had  less  respect  for  the  devil  than  formerly. 

Leaving  Gilbert's  Sound,  Davis  went  on  to  the  north- 
west, and  in  lat.  63°  fell  in  with  a  barrier  of  ice,  which 
he  coasted  for  thirteen  days  without  finding  an  opening. 
The  very  sight  of  an  iceberg  was  new  to  all  his  crew  ;  and 
the  ropes  and  shrouds,  though  it  was  midsummer,  becom- 
ing compassed  with  ice,  — 

The  people  began  to  fall  sick  and  faint-hearted  —  whereupon, 
very  orderly,  with  good  discretion,  they  entreated  me  to  regard 
the  safety  of  mine  own  life,  as  well  as  the  preservation  of  theirs ; 
and  that  I  should  not,  through  over-boldness,  leave  their  widows 
and  fatherless  children  to  give  me  bitter  curses. 

Whereupon,  seeking  counsel  of  God,  it  pleased  His  Divine  Maj- 
esty to  move  my  heart  to  prosecute  that  which  I  hope  shall  be  to 
His  glory,  and  to  the  contentation  of  every  Christian  mind. 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  397 

He  hatt  two  vessels  —  one  of  some  burden,  the  other  a 
pinnace  of  thirty  tons.  The  result  of  the  counsel  which 
he  had  sought  was,  that  he  made  over  his  own  large  vessel 
to  such  as  wished  to  return,  and  himself,  "  thinking  it  bet- 
ter to  die  with  honor  than  to  return  with  infamy,"  went  on 
with  such  volunteers  as  would  follow  him,  in  a  poor  leaky 
cutter,  up  the  sea  now  in  commemoration  of  that  adven- 
ture called  Davis's  Straits.  He  ascended  4°  north  of  the 
furthest  known  point,  among  storms  and  icebergs,  when 
the  long  days  and  twilight  nights  alone  saved  him  from 
being  destroyed,  and,  coasting  back  along  the  American 
shore,  he  discovered  Hudson's  Straits,  supposed  then  to  be 
the  long-desired  entrance  into  the  Pacific.  This  exploit 
drew  the  attention  of  Walsingham,  and  by  him  Davis  was 
presented  to  Burleigh,  "  who  was  also  pleased  to  show  him 
great  encouragement."  If  either  these  statesmen  or  Eliz- 
abeth had  been  twenty  years  younger,  his  name  would 
have  filled  a  larger  space  in  history  than  a  small  corner  of 
the  map  of  the  world ;  but  if  he  was  employed  at  all  in 
the  last  years  of  the  century,  no  vates  sacer  has  been  found 
to  celebrate  his  work,  and  no  clew  is  left  to  guide  us.  He 
disappears  ;  a  cloud  falls  over  him.  He  is  known  to  have 
commanded  trading  vessels  in  the  Eastern  seas,  and  to 
have  returned  five  times  from  India.  But  the  details 
are  all  lost,  and  accident  has  only  parted  the  clouds  for  a 
moment  to  show  us  the  mournful  setting  with  which  he, 
too,  went  down  upon  the  sea. 

In  taking  ovt  Sir  Edward  Michellthorne  to  India,  in 
1604,  he  fell  in  with  a  crew  of  Japanese,  whose  ship  had 
been  burnt,  drifting  at  sea,  without  provisions,  in  a  leaky 
junk.  He  supposed  them  to  be  pirates,  but  he  did  not 
choose  to  leave  them  to  so  wretched  a  death,  and  took 
them  on  board  ;  and  in  a  few  hours,  watching  their  oppor- 
tunity, they  murdered  him. 

As  the  fool  dieth,  so  dieth  the  wise,  and  there  is  no  dif- 
ference ;  it  was  the  chance  of  the  sea,  and  the  ill  reward 


398  England? s  Forgotten  Worthies* 

of  a  humane  action  —  a  melancholy  end  for  such  a  man  — 
like  the  end  of  a  warrior,  not  dying  Epaminondas-like  on 
the  field  of  victory,  but  cut  off  in  some  poor  brawl  or  am- 
buscade. But  so  it  was  with  all  these  men.  They  were 
cut  off  in  the  flower  of  their  days,  and  few  of  them  laid 
their  bones  in  the  sepulchres  of  their  fathers.  Thej  knew 
the  service  which  they  had  chosen,  and  they  did  not  ask 
the  wages  for  which  they  had  not  labored.  Life  with  them 
was  no  summer  holiday,  but  a  holy  sacrifice  offered  up  to 
duty,  and  what  their  Master  sent  was  welcome.  Beautiful 
is  old  age  —  beautiful  is  the  slow-dropping  mellow  autumn 
of  a  rich  glorious  summer.  In  the  old  man,  Nature  has 
fulfilled  her  work  ;  she  loads  him  with  her  blessings ;  she 
fills  him  with  the  fruits  of  a  well-spent  life  ;  and  surrounded 
by  his  children  and  his  children's  children,  she  rocks  him 
softly  away  to  a  grave,  to  which  he  is  followed  with  bless- 
ings. God  forbid  we  should  not  call  it  beautiful.  It  is 
beautiful,  but  not  the  most  beautiful.  There  is  another  life, 
hard,  rough,  and  thorny,  trodden  with  bleeding  feet  and 
aching  brow ;  the  life  of  which  the  cross  is  the  symbol ; 
a  battle  which  no  peace  follows,  this  side  the  grave ;  which 
the  grave  gapes  to  finish,  before  the  victory  is  won  ;  and  — 
strange  that  it  should  be  so  —  this  is  the  highest  life  of 
man.  Look  back  along  the  great  names  of  history  ;  there 
is  none  whose  life  has  been  other  than  this.  They  to  whom 
it  has  been  given  to  do  the  really  highest  work  in  this  earth 

—  whoever  they  are,  Jew  or  Gentile,  Pagan  or  Christian, 
warriors,  legislators,  philosophers,  priests,  poets,  kings,  slaves 

—  one  and  all,  their  fate  has  been  the  same  —  the  same 
bitter  cup  has  been  given  to  them  to  drink.     And  so  it  was 
with  the  servants  of  England  in  the  sixteenth   century. 
Their  life  was  a  long  battle,  either  with  the  elements  or 
with  men  ;  and  it  was  enough  for  them  to  fulfill  their  work, 
and  to  pass  away  in  the  hour  when  God  had  nothing  more 
to  bid  them  do.     They  did  not  complain,  and  why  should 
we  complain  for  them  ?     Peaceful  life  was  not  what  they 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  399 

desired,  and  an  honorable  death  had  no  terrors  for  them. 
Theirs  was  the  old  Grecian  spirit,  and  the  great  heart  of 
the  Theban  poet  lived  again  in  them  :  — 

tif  8'  oiffiv  avdyicr],  ri  Ke  TIS  avtavv^ov 
fv  ffK&Ttf  Ka.Qi]p.fVos  etyoi  juaroj', 
aAojv  afifioposi 


"  Seeing,"  in  Gilbert's  own  brave  words,  "  that  death  is 
inevitable,  and  the  fame  of  virtue  is  immortal  ;  wherefore 
in  this  behalf  mutare  vel  timere  sperno" 

In  the  conclusion  of  these  light  sketches  we  pass  into  an 
element  different  from  that  in  which  we  have  been  lately 
dwelling.  The  scenes  in  which  Gilbert  and  Davis  played 
out  their  high  natures  were  of  the  kind  which  we  call 
peaceful,  and  the  enemies  with  which  they  contended  were 
principally  the  ice  and  the  wind,  and  the  stormy  seas  and 
the  dangers  of  unknown  and  savage  lands.  -We  shall  close 

o  c? 

amidst  the  roar  of  cannon,  and  the  wrath  and  rage  of  bat- 
tle. Hume,  who  alludes  to  the  engagement  which  we  are 
going  to  describe,  speaks  of  it  in  a  tone  which  shows  that 
he  looked  at  it  as  something  portentous  and  prodigious  ; 
as  a  thing  to  wonder  at  —  but  scarcely  as  deserving  the 
admiration  which  we  pay  to  actions  properly  within  the 
scope  of  humanity  —  and  as  if  the  energy  which  was  dis- 
played in  it  was  like  the  unnatural  strength  of  madness. 
He  does  not  say  this,  but  he  appears  to  feel  it  ;  and  he 
scarcely  would  have  felt  it  if  he  had  cared  more  deeply  to 
saturate  himself  with  the  temper  of  the  age  of  which  he 
was  writing.  At  the  time,  all  England  and  all  the  world 
rang  with  the  story.  It  struck  a  deeper  terror,  though  it 
was  but  the  action  of  a  single  ship,  into  the  hearts  of  the 
Spanish  people,  it  dealt  a  more  deadly  blow  upon  their 
fame  and  moral  strength  than  the  destruction  of  the  Ar- 
mada itself;  and  in  the  direct  results  which  arose  from  it, 
it  was  scarcely  less  disastrous  to  them.  Hardly,  as  it  seems 
to  us,  if  the  most  glorious  actions  which  are  set  like  jewels 


400  •  England's  Forgotten   "Worthies. 

in  the  history  of  mankind  are  weighed  one  against  the 
other  in  the  balance,  —  hardly  will  those  300  Spartans  who 
in  the  summer  morning  sat  '•'  combing  their  long  hair  for 
death  "  in  the  passes  of  Thermopylae,  have  earned  a  more 
lofty  estimate  for  themselves  than  this  one  crew  of  modern 
Englishmen. 

In  August,  1591,  Lord  Thomas  Howard,  with  six  Eng- 
lish line-of-battle  ships,  six  victualers,  and  two  or  three 
pinnaces,  was  lying  at  anchor  under  the  Island  of  Florez* 
Light  in  ballast  and  short  of  water,  with  half  his  men  dis- 

O  / 

abled  by  sickness,  Howard  was  unable  to  pursue  the  ag- 
gressive purpose  on  which  he  had  been  sent  out.  Several 
of  the  ships'  crews  were  on  shore :  the  ships  themselves 
"  all  pestered  and  rommaging,"  with  every  thing  out  of 
order.  In  this  condition  they  were  surprised  by  a  Span- 
ish fleet  consisting  of  53  men-of-war.  Eleven  out  of  the 
twelve  English  ships  obeyed  the  signal  of  the  admiral,  to 
cut  or  weigh  their  anchors  and  escape  as  they  might. 
The  twelfth,  the  Revenge,  was  unable  for  the  moment  to 
follow.  Of  her  crew  of  190,  ninety  were  sick  on  shore, 
and,  from  the  position  of  the  ship,  there  was  some  delay 
and  difficulty  in  getting  them  on  board.  The  Revenge  was 
commanded  by  Sir  Richard  Grenville,  of  Bideford,  a  man 
well  known  in  the  Spanish  seas,  and  the  terror  of  the 
Spanish  sailors  ;  so  fierce  he  was  said  to  be,  that  mythic 
stories  passed  from  lip  to  lip  about  him,  and,  like  Earl  Tal- 
bot  or  Coeur  de  Lion,  the  nurses  at  the  Azores  frightened 
children  with  the  sound  of  his  name.  "  He  was  of  great 
revenues,  of  his  own  inheritance,"  they  said,  "  but  of  un- 
quiet mind,  and  greatly  affected  to  wars ;  "  and  from  his 
uncontrollable  propensities  for  blood-eating,  he  had  volun- 
teered his  services  to  the  queen  ;  "  of  so  hard  a  complex- 
ion was  he,  that  I  (John  Huighen  von  Lirischoten,  who  is 
our  authority  here,  and  who  was  with  the  Spanish  fleet 
after  the  action)  have  been  told  by  divers  credible  persons 
who  stood  and  beheld  him,  that  he  would  carouse  three  or 


Englanffs  Forgotten  Worthies.  401 

four  glasses  of  wine,  and  take  the  glasses  between  his 
teeth  and  crush  them  in  pieces  and  swallow  them  down.'' 
Such  Grenville  was  to  the  Spaniard.  To  the  English  he 
was  a  goodly  and  gallant  gentleman,  who  had  never  turned 
his  back  upon  an  enemy,  and  was  remarkable  in  that  re- 
markable time  for  his  constancy  and  daring.  In  this  sur- 
prise at  Florez  he  was  in  no  haste  to  fly.  He  first  saw  all 
his  sick  on  board  and  stowed  away  on  the  ballast;  and 
then,  with  no  more  than  100  men  left  him  to  fight  and 
work  the  ship,  he  deliberately  weighed,  uncertain,  as  it 
seemed  at  first,  what  he  intended  to  do.  The  Spanish 
fleet  were  by  this  time  on  his  weather  bow,  and  he  was 
persuaded  (we  here  take  his  cousin  Raleigh's  beautiful 
narrative,  and  follow  it  in  Raleigh's  words)  "  to  cut  his 
main  sail  and  cast  about,  and  trust  to  the  sailing  of  the 
ship  "  :  — 

But  Sir  Richard  utterly  refused  to  turn  from  the  enemy,  alleg- 
ing that  he  would  rather  choose  to  die  than  to  dishonor  himself, 
his  country,  and  her  Majesty's  ship,  persuading  his  company  that 
he  would  pass  through  their  two  squadrons  in  spite  of  them,  and 
enforce  those  of  Seville  to  give  him  way ;  which  he  performed 
upon  diverse  of  the  foremost,  who,  as  the  mariners  term  it,  sprang 
their  luff,  and  fell  under  the  lee  of  the  Revenge.  But  the  other 
course  had  been  the  better ;  and  might  right  well  have  been  an- 
swered in  so  great  an  impossibility  of  prevailing  :  notwithstand- 
ing, out  of  the  greatness  of  his  mind,  he  could  not  be  persuaded. 

The  wind  was  light;  the  San  Philip  "a  huge  high- 
carged  ship"  of  1500  tons,  came  up  to  windward  of  him, 
and,  taking  the  wind  out  of  his  sails,  ran  aboard  him. 

After  the  Revenge  was  entangled  with  the  San  Philip,  four 
others  boarded  her,  two  on  her  larboard  and  two  on  her  star- 
board. The  fight  thus  beginning  at  three  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon continued  very  terrible  all  that  evening.  But  the  great 
San  Philip,  having  received  the  lower  tier  of  the  Revenge, 
shifted  herself  with  all  diligence  from  her  sides,  utterly  misliking 
her  first  entertainment.  The  Spanish  ships  were  filled  with  sol- 
diers, in  some  200,  besides  the  mariners,  in  some  500,  in  others 
2*5 


402  England's  Forgotten  Worthies. 

800.  Iii  ours  there  were  none  at  all,  besides  the  mariners,  but 
the  servants  of  the  commander  and  some  few  voluntary  gentlemen 
only.  After  many  interchanged  volleys  of  great  ordnance  and 
small  shot,  the  Spaniards  deliberated  to  enter  the  Revenge,  and 
made  divers  attempts,  hoping  to  force  her  by  the  multitude  of 
their  armed  soldiers  and  musketeers  ;  but  were  still  repulsed 
again  and  again,  and  at  all  times  beaten  back  into  their  own  ship 
or  into  the  sea.  In  the  beginning  of  the  fight  the  George  No- 
ble, of  London,  having  received  some  shot  through  her  by  the 
Armadas,  fell  under  the  lee  of  the  Revenge,  and  asked  Sir 
Richard  what  he  would  command  him ;  but  being  one  of  the 
victualers,  and  of  small  force,  Sir  Richard  bad  him  save  himself 
and  leave  him  to  his  fortune. 

This  last  was  a  little  touch  of  gallantry,  which  we  should 
be  glad  to  remember  with  the  honor  due  to  the  brave 
English  sailor  who  commanded  the  George  Noble  ;  but  his 
name  has  passed  away,  and  his  action  is  an  in  memoriam, 
on  which  time  has  effaced  the  writing.  All  that  August 
night  the  fight  continued,  the  stars  rolling  over  in  their 
sad  majesty,  but  unseen  through  the  sulphurous  clouds 
which  hung  over  the  scene.  Ship  after  ship  of  the  Span- 
iards came  on  upon  the  Revenge,  "so  that  never  less  than 
two  mighty  galleons  were  at  her  side  and  aboard  her," 
washing  up  like  waves  upon  a  rock,  and  falling  foiled  and 
shattered  back  amidst  the  roar  of  the  artillery.  Before 
morning  fifteen  several  armadas  had  assailed  her,  and  all 
in  vain ;  some  had  been  sunk  at  her  side ;  and  the  rest, 
"  so  ill  approving  of  their  entertainment,  that  at  break  of 
day  they  were  far  more  willing  to  hearken  to  a  composi- 
tion, than  hastily  to  make  more  assaults  or  entries."  "  But 
as  the  day  increased,"  says  Raleigh,  "  so  our  men  de- 
creased ;  and  as  the  light  grew  more  and  more,  by  so 
much  the  more  grew  our  discomfort,  for  none  appeared  in 
sight  but  enemies,  save  one  small  ship  called  the  Pil- 
grim, commanded  by  Jacob  "Whiddon,  who  hovered  all 
night  to  see  the  success,  but  in  the  morning,  bearing  with 
the  Revenge,  was  hunted  like  a  hare  among  many  raven- 
ous hounds  —  but  escaped." 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  403 

All  the  powder  in  the  Revenge  was  now  spent,  all  her 
pikes  were  broken,  40  out  of  her  100  men  killed,  and  a 
great  number  of  the  rest  wounded.  Sir  Richard,  though 
badly  hurt  early  in  the  battle,  never  forsook  the  deck  till 
an  hour  before  midnight ;  and  was  then  shot  through  the 
body  while  his  wounds  were  being  dressed,  and  again  in 
the  head.  His  surgeon  was  killed  while  attending  on 
him  ;  the  masts  were  lying  over  the  side,  the  rigging  cut 
or  broken,  the  upper  works  all  shot  in  pieces,  and  the  ship 
herself,  unable  to  move,  was  settling  slowly  in  the  sea ; 
the  vast  fleet  of  Spaniards  lying  round  her  in  a  ring,  like 
dogs  round  a  dying  lion,  and  wary  of  approaching  him  in 
his  last  agony.  Sir  Richard,  seeing  that  it  was  past  hope* 
having  fought  for  fifteen  hours,  and  "  having  by  estimation 
eight  hundred  shot  of  great  artillery  through  him,"  "  com- 
manded the  master  gunner,  whom  he  knew  to  be  a  most 
resolute  man,  to  split  and  sink  the  ship,  that  thereby  noth- 
ing might  remain  of  glory  or  victory  to  the  Spaniards ; 
seeing  in  so  many  hours  they  were  not  able  to  take  her, 
having  had  above  fifteen  hours'  time,  above  ten  thousand 
men,  and  fifty-three  men-of-war  to  perform  it  withal ;  and 
persuaded  the  company,  or  as  many  as  he  could  induce,  to 
yield  themselves  unto  God  and  to  the  mercy  of  none  else  ; 
but  as  they  had,  like  valiant  resolute  men,  repulsed  so 
many  enemies,  they  should  not  now  shorten  the  honor  of 
their  nation  by  prolonging  their  own  lives  for  a  few  hours 
or  a  few  days." 

The  gunner  and  a  few  others  consented.  But  such 
Saipovi-f)  aperrj  was  more  than  could  be  expected  of  ordinary 
seamen.  They  had  dared  do  all  which  did  become  men, 
and  they  were  not  more  than  men.  Two  Spanish  ships 
had  gone  down,  above  1500  of  their  crews  were  killed,  and 
the  Spanish  Admiral  could  not  induce  any  one  of  the  rest 
of  his  fleet  to  board  the  Revenge  again,  "  doubting  lest 
Sir  Richard  woxild  have  blown  up  himself  and  them, 
knowing  his  dangerous  disposition."  Sir  Richard  lying 


404  England's  Forgotten  Worthies. 

disabled  below,  the  captain,  "  finding  the  Spaniards  as 
ready  to  entertain  a  composition  as  they  could  be  to  offer 
it,"  gained  over  the  majority  of  the  surviving  company ; 
and  the  remainder  then  drawing  back  from  the  master 
gunner,  they  all,  without  further  consulting  their  dying 
commander,  surrendered  on  honorable  terms.  If  unequal 
to  the  English  in  action*  the  Spaniards  were  at  least  as 
courteous  in  victory.  It  is  due  to  them  to  say,  that  the 
conditions  were  faithfully  observed ;  and  "  the  ship  being 
marvelous  unsavourie,"  Alonzo  de  Ba9on,  the  Spanish 
Admiral,  sent  his  boat  to  bring  Sir  Richard  on  board  his 
own  vessel. 

Sir  Richard,  whose  life  was  fast  ebbing  away,  replied 
that  "  he  might  do  with  his  body  what  he  list,  for  that  he 
esteemed  it  not ; "  and  as  he  was  carried  out  of  the  ship 
he  swooned,  and  reviving  again,  desired  the  company  to 
pray  for  him. 

The  Admiral  used  him  with  all  humanity,  "  commending 
his  valor  and  worthiness,  being  unto  them  a  rare  specta- 
cle, and  a  resolution  seldom  approved."  The  officers  of 
the  fleet,  too,  John  Higgins  tells  us,  crowded  round  to  look 
at  him ;  and  a  new  fight  had  almost  broken  out  between 
the  Biscayans  and  the  "Portugals,"  each  claiming  the 
honor  of  having  boarded  the  Revenge. 

In  a  few  hours  Sir  Richard,  feeling  bis  end  approaching,  showed 
not  any  sign  of  faintness,  but  spake  these  words  in  Spanish,  and 
said,  "  Here  die  I,  Richard  Grenville,  with  a  joyful  and  quiet 
mind,  for  that  I  have  ended  my  life  as  a  true  soldier  ought  to  do 
that  hath  fought  for  his  country,  queen,  religion,  and  honor. 
Whereby  my  soul  most  joyfully  departeth  out  of  this  body,  and 
shall  always  leave  behind  it  an  everlasting  fame  of  a  valiant  and 
true  soldier  that  hath  done  his  duty  as  he  was  bound  to  do." 
When  he  had  finished  these  or  other  such  like  words,  he  gave  up 
the  ghost  with  great  and  stout  courage,  and  no  man  could  per- 
ceive any  sign  of  heaviness  in  him. 

uch  was  the  fight  at  Florez,  in  that  August  of  1591, 


England's  Forgotten  Worthies.  405 

without  its  equal  in  such  of  the  annals  of  mankind  as  the 
thing  which  we  call  history  has  preserved  to  us ;  scarcely 
equaled  by  the  most  glorious  fate  which  the  imagination 
of  Barrere  could  invent  for  the  Venguer.  Nor  did  the 
matter  end  without  a  sequel  awful  as  itself.  Sea-battles 
have  been  often  followed  by  storms,  and  without  a  miracle ; 
but  with  a  miracle,  as  the  Spaniards  and  the  English  alike 
believed,  or  without  one,  as  we  moderns  would  prefer  be- 
lieving, "  there  ensued  on  this  action  a  tempest  so  terrible 
as  was  never  seen  or  heard  the  like  before."  A  fleet  of 
merchantmen  joined  the  armada  immediately  after  the  bat- 
tle, forming  in  all  140  sail ;  and  of  these  140,  only  32  ever 
saw  Spanish  harbor.  The  rest  foundered,  or  were  lost  on 
the  Azores.  The  men-of-war  had  been  so  shattered  by 
shot  as  to  be  unable  to  carry  sail ;  and  the  Revenge  her- 
self, disdaining  to  survive  her  commander,  or,  as  if  to 
complete  his  own  last  baffled  purpose,  like  Samson,  buried 
herself  and  her  200  prize  crew  under  the  rocks  of  St. 
Michael's. 

And  it  may  well  be  thought  and  presumed  (says  John  Huighen) 
that  it  was  no  other  than  a  just  plague  purposely  sent  upon  the 
Spaniards ;  and  that  it  might  be  truly  said,  the  taking  of  the 
Revenge  was  justly  revenged  on  them ;  and  not  by  the  might 
or  force  of  man,  but  by  the  power  of  God.  As  some  of  them 
openly  said  in  the.  Isle  of  Terceira,  that  they  believed  verily  God 
would  consume  them,  and  that  He  took  part  with  the  Lutherans 
and  heretics  ....  saying  further,  that  so  soon  as  they  had  thrown 
the  dead  body  of  the  Vice- Admiral  Sir  Richard  Grenville  over- 
board, they  verily  thought  that  as  he  had  a  devilish  faith  and  re- 
ligion, and  therefore  the  devil  loved  him,  so  he  presently  sunk 
into  the  bottom  of  the  sea  and  down  into  hell,  where  he  raised  up 
all  the  devils  to  the  revenge  of  his  death,  and  that  they  brought 
so  great  a  storm  and  torments  upon  the  Spaniards,  because  they 
only  maintain  the  Catholic  and  Romish  religion.  Such  and  the 
like  blasphemies  against  God  they  ceased  not  openly  to  utter. 


HOMER,1 


TKOT  fell  before  the  Greeks  ;  and  in  its  turn  the  war  of 
Troy  is  now  falling  before  the  critics.  That  ten  years' 
death-struggle,  in  which  the  immortals  did  not  disdain  to 
mingle  —  those  massive  warriors,  with  their  grandeur  and 
their  chivalry,  have,  '•  like  an  unsubstantial  pageant,  faded  " 
before  the  wand  of  these  modern  enchanters ;  and  the 
"  Iliad  "  and  the  "  Odyssey,"  and  the  other  early  legends,  are 
discovered  to  be  no  more  than  the  transparent  myths  of  an 
old  cosmogony,  the  arabesques  and  frescos  with  which  the 
imagination  of  the  Ionian  poets  set  off  and  ornamented 
the  palace  of  the  heavens,  the  struggle  of  the  eartli  with 
the  seasons,  and  the  labors  of  the  sun  through  his  twelve 
signs. 

Nay,  with  Homer  himself  it  was  likely  at  one  time  to 
have  fared  no  better.  His  works,  indeed,  were  indestructi- 
ble, yet  if  they  could  not  be  destroyed,  they  might  be  dis- 
organized ;  and  with  their  instinctive  hatred  of  facts,  the 
critics  fastened  on  the  historical  existence  of  the  poet. 
The  origin  of  the  poems  was  distributed  among  the  clouds 
of  pre-historic  imagination ;  and  instead  of  a  single  in- 
spired Homer  for  their  author,  we  were  required  to  believe 
in  some  extraordinary  spontaneous  generation,  or  in  some 
collective  genius  of  an  age  which  ignorance  had  personified, 

But  the  person  of  a  poet  has  been  found  more  difficult 
of  elimination  than  a  mere  fact  of  history.  Facts,  it  was 

1  Fraser's  Mar/asine,  1851. 


Homer.  407 

once  said,  were  stubborn  things  ;  but  in  our  days  we  have 
changed  all  that ;  a  fact,  under  the  knife  of  a  critic,  splits 
in  pieces,  and  is  dissected  out  of  belief  with  incredible 
readiness.  The  helpless  thing  lies  under  his  hand  like  a 
foolish  witness  in  a  law  court,  when  browbeaten  by  an  un- 
scrupulous advocate,  and  is  turned  about  and  twisted  this 
way  and  that  way,  till  in  its  distraction  it  contradicts  itself, 
and  bears  witness  against  itself;  and  to  escape  from  tor- 
ture, at  last  flies  utterly  away,  itself  half  doubting  its  own 
existence. 

But  it  requires  more  cunning  weapons  to  destroy  a  Ho- 
mer; like  his  own  immortals,  he  may  be  wounded,  but 
he  cannot  have  the  life  carved  ovit  of  him  by  the  prosaic 
strokes  of  common  men.  His  poems  have  but  to  be  dis- 
integrated to  unite  again,  so  strong  are  they  in  the  indi- 
viduality of  their  genius.  The  singleness  of  their  struct- 
ure —  the  unity  of  design  —  the  distinctness  of  drawing  in 
the  characters  —  the  inimitable  peculiarities  of  manner  in 
each  of  them,  seem  to  place  beyond  serious  question,  after 
the  worst  onslaught  of  the  Wolfian  critics,  that  both  "  Iliad" 
and  "  Odyssey,"  whether  or  not  the  work  of  the  same  mind, 
are  at  least  each  of  them  singly  the  work  of  one. 

Let  them  leave  us  Homer,  however,  and  on  the  rank 
and  file  of  facts  they  may  do  their  worst ;  we  can  be  indif- 
ferent to,  or  even  thankful  for,  what  slaughter  they  may 
make.  In  the  legends  of  the  Theogonia,  in  that  of  Zeus 
and  Cronus,  for  instance,  there  is  evidently  a  metaphysical 
allegory ;  in  the  legends  of  Persephone,  or  of  the  Dios- 
curi, a  physical  one  ;  in  that  of  Athene,  a  profoundly  phil- 
osophical one  ;  and  fused  as  the  entire  system  was  in  the 
intensely  poetical  conception  of  the  early  thinkers,  it  would 
be  impossible,  even  if  it  were  desirable,  at  this  time  of  day 
to  disentangle  the  fibres  of  all  these  various  elements. 
Fact  and  theory,  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  the  le- 
gendary and  the  philosophical,  shade  off  so  imperceptibly 
one  into  the  other,  in  the  stories  of  the  Olympians,  or  of 


408  Homer. 

their  first  offspring,  that  we  can  never  assure  ourselves  that 
we  are  on  historic  ground,  or  that,  antecedent  to  the  really 
historic  age,  there  is  any  such  ground  to  be  found  any- 
where. The  old  notion,  that  the  heroes  were  deified  men, 
is  no  longer  tenable.  With  but  few  exceptions,  we  can 
trace  their  names  as  the  names  of  the  old  gods  of  the  Hel- 
lenic or  Pelasgian  races ;  and  if  they  appeared  later  in 
human  forms,  they  descended  from  Olympus  to  assume 
them.  Diomed  was  the  CEtolian  sun-god;  Achilles  was 
worshiped  in  Thessaly  long  before  he  became  the  hero  of 
the  tale  of  Troy.  The  tragedy  of  the  house  of  Atreus, 
and  the  bloody  bath  of  Agamemnon,  as  we  are  now  told 
with  appearance  of  certainty,1  are  humanized  stories  of 
the  physical  struggle  of  the  opposing  principles  of  life 
and  death,  light  and  darkness,  night  and  day,  winter  and 
summer. 

And  let  them  be  so  ;  we  need  not  be  sorry  to  believe 
that  there  is  no  substantial  basis  for  these  tales  of  crime. 
The  history  of  mankind  is  not  so  pure  but  that  we  can  af- 
ford to  lose  a  few  dark  pages  out  of  the  record.  Let  it  be 
granted  that  of  the  times  which  Homer  sung  historically  we 
know  nothing  literal  at  all  —  not  any  names  of  any  kings, 
of  any  ministers,  wars,  intrigues,  revolutions,  crimes.  They 
are  all  gone  —  dead  —  passed  away ;  their  vacant  chronicles 
may  be  silent  as  the  tombs  in  which  their  bones  are  buried. 
Of  such  stuff  as  that  with  which  historians  fill  their  pages 
there  is  no  trace  ;  it  is  a  blank,  vacant  as  the  annals  of  the 
Hottentot  or  of  the  Red  Indian.  Yet  when  all  is  said, 
there  remain  still  to  us  in  Homer's  verse,  materials  richer, 
perhaps,  than  exist  for  any  period  of  the  ancient  world, 
richer  than  even  for  the  brilliant  days  of  Pericles,  or  of 
the  Cassars,  to  construct  a  history  of  another  kind  —  a  his- 
tory, a  picture  not  of  the  times  of  which  he  sang,  but  of 
the  men  among  whom  he  lived.  How  they  acted ;  how 
they  thought,  talked,  and  felt;  what  they  made  of  this 

1  Mackay's  Progress  of  the  Intellect. 


Homer.  40  S 

earth,  and  of  their  place  in  it ;  their  private  life  and  their 
public  life  ;  men  and  women  ;  masters  and  servants ;  rich 
and  poor  —  we  have  it  all  delineated  in  the  marvelous 
verse  of  a  poet  who,  be  he  what  he  may,  was  in  this  respect 
the  greatest  which  the  earth  has  ever  seen.  In  extent, 
the  information  is  little  enough  ;  but  in  the  same  sense  as 
it  has  been  said  that  an  hour  at  an  Athenian  supper-party 
would  teach  us  more  Grecian  life  and  character  than  all 
Aristophanes,  Homer's  pictures  of  life  and  manners  are  so 
living,  so  distinct,  so  palpable,  that  a  whole  prose  encyclo- 
pedia of  disconnected  facts  could  give  us  nothing  like 
them.  It  is  the  marvelous  property  of  verse  —  one,  if  we 
rightly  consider  it,  which  would  excuse  any  superstition  on 
the  origin  of  language  —  that  the  metrical  and  rhythmic 
arrangement  of  syllable  and  sound  is  able  to  catch  and  ex- 
press back  to  us,  not  the  stories  of  actions,  but  the  actions 
themselves,  with  all  the  feelings  which  inspire  them  ;  to 
call  up  human  action,  and  all  other  outward  things  in 
which  human  hearts  take  interest  —  to  produce  them,  or  to 
reproduce  them,  with  a  distinctness  which  shall  produce 
the  same  emotions  which  they  would  themselves  produce 
when  really  existing.  The  thing  itself  is  made  present  be- 
fore us  by  an  exercise  of  creative  power  as  genuine  as  that 
of  Nature  herself;  which,  perhaps,  is  but  the  same  power 
manifesting  itself  at  one  time  in  words,  at  another  in  out- 
ward phenomena.  Whatever  be  the  cause,  the  fact  is  so. 
Poetry  has  this  life-giving  power,  and  prose  has  it  not;  and 
thus  the  poet  is  the  truest  historian.  Whatever  is  prop- 
erly valuable  in  history  the  poet  gives  us  —  not  events  and 
names,  but  emotion,  but  action,  but  life.  He  is  the  heart 
of  his  age,  and  his  verse  expresses  his  age ;  and  what 
matter  is  it  by  what  name  he  describes  his  places  or  his 
persons  ?  What  matter  is  it  what  his  own  name  was,  Avhile 
we  have  himself,  and  while  we  have  the  originals,  from 
which  he  drew  ?  The  work  and  the  life  are  all  for  which 
we  need  care,  are  all  which  can  really  interest  us ;  the 


410  Homer. 

names  are  nothing.  Though  Phceacia  was  a  dream-land, 
or  a  symbol  of  the  Elysian  fields,  yet  Homer  drew  his  ma- 
terial, his  island,  his  palaces,  his  harbor,  his  gardens  of 
perennial  beauty,  from  those  fair  cities  which  lay  along  the 
shores  of  his  own  Ionia ;  and  like  his  blind  Demodocus, 
Homer  doubtless  himself  sung  those  very  hymns  which 
now  delight  us  so,  in  the  halls  of  many  a  princely  Al- 
cinous. 

The  prose  historian  may  give  us  facts  and  names ;  he 
may  catalogue  the  successions,  and  tell  us  long  stories 
of  battles,  and  of  factions,  and  of  political  intrigues ;  he 
may  draw  characters  for  us,  of  the  sort  which  figure  com- 
monly in  such  features  of  human  affairs,  men  of  the  unhe- 
roic,  unpoetic  kind  —  the  Cleons,  the  Sejanuses,  the  Tibe- 
riuses,  a  Philip  the  Second  or  a  Louis  Quatorze,  in  whom 
the  noble  element  died  out  into  selfishness  and  vulgarity. 
But  great  men  —  and  all  MEN  properly  so  called  (whatever 
is  genuine  and  natural  in  them)  —  lie  beyond  prose,  and  can 
only  be  really  represented  by  the  poet.  This  is  the  reason 
why  such  men  as  Alexander,  or  as  Caesar,  or  as  Cromwell, 
so  perplex  us  in  histories,  because  they  and  their  actions 
are  beyond  the  scope  of  the  art  through  which  we  have 
looked  at  them.  We  compare  the  man  as  the  historian 
represents  him,  with  the  track  of  his  path  through  the 
world.  The  work  is  the  work  of  a  giant ;  the  man, 
stripped  of  the  vulgar  appendages  with  which  the  stunted 
imagination  of  his  biographer  may  have  set  him  off,  is  full 
of  meannesses  and  littlenesses,  and  is  scarcely  greater 
than  one  of  ourselves.  Prose,  that  is,  has  attempted  some- 
thing to  which  it  is  not  equal.  It  describes  a  figure  which 
it  calls  Caesar ;  but  it  is  not  Caesar,  it  is  a  monster.  For 
the  same  reason,  prose  fictions,  novels,  and  the  like,  are 
worthless  for  more  than  a  momentary  purpose.  The  life 
which  they  are  able  to  represent  is  not  worth  representing. 
There  is  no  person  so  poor  in  his  own  eyes  as  not  to  gaze 
with  pleasure  into  a  looking-glass ;  and  the  prose  age  may 


Homer.  411 

value  its  own  image  in  the  novel.  But  the  value  of  all 
such  representations  is  ephemeral.  It  is  with  the  poet's 
art  as  with  the  sculptor's  —  sandstone  will  not  carve  like 
marble,  its  texture  is  too  loose  to  retain  a  sharply  moulded 
outline.  The  actions  of  men,  if  they  are  true,  noble,  and 
genuine,  are  strong  enough  to  bear  the  form  and  bear  the 
polish  of  verse  ;  if  loose  or  feeble,  they  crumble  away  into 
the  softer  undulations  of  prose. 

What  the  life  was  whose  texture  bore  shaping  into  Ho- 
mer's verse,  we  intend  to  spend  these  pages  in  examining. 
It  is,  of  course,  properly  to  be  sought  for  in  the  poems 
themselves.  But  we  shall  here  be  concerned  mainly  with 
features  which  in  the  original  are  rather  secondary  than 
prominent,  and  which  have  to  be  collected  out  of  frag- 
ments, here  a  line  and  there  a  line,  out  of  little  hints,  let 
fall  by  Homer  as  it  were  by  accident.  Things  too  familiar 
to  his  own  hearers  to  require  dwelling  on,  to  us,  whose  ob- 
ject is  to  make  out  just  those  very  things  which  were  fa- 
miliar, are  of  special  and  singular  value.  It  is  not  an 
inquiry  which  will  much  profit  us,  if  we  come  to  it  with 
any  grand  notions  of  the  "  progress  of  the  species,"  for  in 
many  ways  it  will  discourage  the  belief  in  progress. 

We  have  fallen  into  ways  of  talking  of  the  childhood 
and  infancy  of  the  race,  as  if  no  beards  had  grown  on  any 
face  before  the  modern  Reformation ;  and  even  people  who 
know  what  old  Athens  was  under  Pericles,  look  commonly 
on  earlier  Greece  as  scarcely  struggling  out  of  its  cradle. 

It  would  have  fared  so  with  all  early  history  except  for 
the  Bible.  The  Old  Testament  has  operated  partially  to 
keep  us  in  our  modest  senses,  and  we  can  see  something 
grand  about  the  patriarchs ;  but  this  is  owing  to  excep- 
tional causes,  which  do  not  apply  to  other  literature  ;  and 
in  spite  of  our  admiration  of  Homer's  poetry,  we  regard 
his  age,  and  the  contemporary  periods  in  the  other  people 
of  the  earth,  as  a  kind  of  childhood  little  better  than  bar- 
barism. We  look  upon  it,  at  all  events,  as  too  far  re« 


412  Homer. 

moved  in  every  essential  of  spirit  or  of  form  from  our  own, 
to  enable  us  to  feel  for  it  any  strong  interest  or  sympathy. 
More  or  less,  we  have,  every  one  of  us,  felt  something  of 
this  kind.  Homer's  men  are,  at  first  sight,  unlike  any  men 
that  we  have  ever  seen ;  and  it  is  not  without  a  shock  of 
surprise  that,  for  the  first  time,  we  fall,  in  reading  him, 
across  some  little  trait  of  humanity  which  in  form  as  well 
as  spirit  is  really  identical  with  our  own  experience.  Then 
for  the  moment,  all  is  changed  with  us  —  gleams  of  light 
flash  out,  in  which  the  drapery  becomes  transparent,  and 
we  see  the  human  form  behind  it,  and  that  entire  old  world 
in  the  warm  glow  of  flesh  and  blood.  Such  is  the  effect 
of  those  few  child-scenes  of  his,  which  throw  us  back  into 
our  old  familiar  childhood.  With  all  these  years  between 
us,  there  is  no  difference  between  their  children  and  ours, 
and  child  would  meet  child  without  sense  of  strangeness  in 
common  games  and  common  pleasures. 

The  little  Ulysses  climbing  on  the  knees  of  his  father's 
guest,  coaxing  for  a  taste  of  the  red  wine,  and  spilling  it  as 
he  starts  at  the  unusual  taste  ;  or  that  other  most  beautiful 
picture  of  him  running  at  Laertes's  side  in  the  garden  at 
Ithaca,  the  father  teaching  the  boy  the  names  of  the  fruit- 
trees,  and  making  presents  to  him  of  this  tree  and  of  that 
tree  for  his  very  own,  to  help  him  to  remember  what  they 
were  called;  the  partition  wall  of  three  thousand  years 
melts  away  as  we  look  back  at  scenes  lil\e  these;  that 
broad,  world-experienced  man  was  once,  then,  such  a  little 
creature  as  we  remember  ourselves,  and  Laertes  a  calm, 
kind  father  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Then,  as  now,  the 
children  loved  to  sport  upon  the  shore,  and  watch  the  in-roll- 
ing waves  ;  —  then,  as  now,  the  boy-architect  would  pile 
the  moist  sand  into  mimic  town  or  castle,  and  when  the 
work  was  finished,  sweep  it  away  again  in  wanton  humor 
with  foot  and  hand ;  —  then,  as  now,  the  little  tired  maiden 
would  cling  to  her  mother's  skirt,  and  trotting  painfully 
along  beside  her,  look  up  wistfully  and  plead  with  moist 


Homer.  413 

eyes  to  be  carried  in  her  arms.  Nay,  .and  among  the 
grown  ones,  where  time  has  not  changed  the  occupation, 
and  the  forms  of  culture  have  little  room  to  vary,  we  meet 
again  with  very  familiar  faces.  There  is  Melantho,  the 
not  over-modest  tittering  waiting-maid  —  saucy  to  her  mis- 
tress and  the  old  housekeeper,  and  always  running  after 
the  handsome  young  princes.  Unhappy  Melantho,  true 
child  of  universal  Nature  !  grievous  work  we  should  make 
with  most  households,  if  all  who  resemble  thee  were  treated 
to  as  rough  a  destiny.  And  there  are  other  old  friends 
whom  it  is  pleasant  enough  to  recognize  at  so  long  a  dis- 
tance. "  Certain  smooth-haired,  sleek-faced  fellows  —  in- 
solent where  their  lords  would  permit  them ;  inquisitive 
and  pert,  living  but  to  eat  and  drink,  and  pilfering  the 
good  things,  to  convey  them  stealthily  to  their  friends  out- 
side the  castle  wall."  The  thing  that  hath  been,  that  shall 
be  again.  When  Homer  wrote,  the  type  had  settled  into 
its  long  enduring  form.  "  Such  are  they,"  he  adds,  in  his 
good-natured  irony,  "  as  the  valet  race  ever  love  to  be." 

With  such  evidence  of  identity  among  us  all,  it  is  worth 
while  to  look  closer  at  the  old  Greeks,  to  try  to  find  in  Ho- 
mer something  beyond  fine  poetry,  or  exciting  adventures, 
or  battle-scenes,  or  material  for  scholarship  ;  for  a  while  to 
set  all  that  aside,  and  look  in  him  for  the  story  of  real  liv- 
ing men  —  set  to  pilgrimize  in  the  old  way  on  the  same 
old  earth  —  men  such  as  we  are,  children  of  one  family, 
with  the  same  work  to  do,  to  live  the  best  life  they  could 
and  to  save  their  souls  —  with  the  same  trials,  the  same 
passions,  the  same  difficulties,  if  with  weaker  means  of 
meeting  them. 

And  first  for  their  religion. 

Let  those  who  like  it,  lend  their  labor  to  the  unraveling 
the  secrets  of  the  mythologies.  Thcogonies  and  Theolo- 
gies are  not  religion  ;  they  are  but  its  historic  dress  and 
outward  or  formal  expression,  which,  like  a  language,  may  be 
intelligible  to  those  who  see  the  inward  meaning  in  the  sign, 


414  Homer. 

but  no  more  thau  confused  sound  to  us  who  live  in  another 
atmosphere,  and  have  no  means  of  transferring  ourselves 
into  the  sentiment  of  an  earlier  era.  It  is  not  in  these 
forms  of  a  day  or  of  an  age  that  we  should  look  for  the 
real  belief —  the  real  feelings  of  the  heart ;  but  in  the 
natural  expressions  which  burst  out  spontaneously  —  ex- 
pressions of  opinion  on  Providence,  on  the  relation  of  man 
to  God,  on  the  eternal  laws  by  which  this  world  is  governed. 
Perhaps  we  misuse  the  word  in  speaking  of  religion  ;  we 
ought  rather  to  speak  of  piety :  piety  is  always  simple  ;  the 
emotion  is  too  vast,  too  overpowering,  whenever  it  is  gen- 
uine, to  be  nice  or  fantastic  in  its  form  ;  and  leaving  phi- 
losophies and  cosmogonies  to  shape  themselves  in  myth  and 
legend,  it  speaks  itself  out  with  a  calm  and  humble  clear- 
ness. We  may  trifle  with  our  own  discoveries,  and  hand 
them  over  to  the  fancy  or  the  imagination  for  elaborate 
decoration.  We  may  shroud  over  supposed  mysteries 
under  an  enigmatic  veil,  and  adapt  the  degrees  of  initiation 
to  the  capacities  of  our  pupils  ;  but  before  the  vast  facts  of 
God  and  Providence,  the  difference  between  man  and  man 
dwarfs  into  nothing.  They  are  no  discoveries  of  our  own 
with  which  we  can  meddle,  but  revelations  of  the  Infinite, 
which,  like  the  sunlight,  shed  themselves  on  all  alike,  wise 
and  unwise,  good  and  evil,  and  they  claim  and  they  permit 
no  other  acknowledgment  from  us  than  the  simple  obedience 
of  our  lives,  and  the  plainest  confession  of  pur  lips. 

Such  confessions,  except  in  David's  Psalms,  we  shall  not 
anywhere  find  more  natural  or  unaffected  than  in  Homer 
—  most  definite,  yet  never  elaborate  —  as  far  as  may  be 
from  any  complimenting  of  Providence,  yet  expressing  the 
most  unquestioning  conviction.  We  shall  not  often  re- 
member them  when  we  set  about  religion  as  a  business ; 
but  when  the  occasions  of  life  stir  the  feelings  in  us  on 
which  religion  itself  reposes,  if  we  were  as  familiar  with 
the  "  Iliad  "  as  with  the  Psalms,  the  words  of  the  old  Ionian 
singer  would  leap  as  naturally  to  our  lips  as  those  of  the 
Israelite  king. 


Homer.  415 

Zeus  is  not  always  the  questionable  son  of  Cronus,  nor 
the  gods  always  the  mythologic  Olympians.  Generally,  it 
is  true,  they  appear  as  a  larger  order  of  subject  beings  — 
beings  like  men,  and  subject  to  a  higher  control  —  in  a 
position  closely  resembling  that  of  Milton's  angels,  and 
liable  like  them  to  passion  and  to  error.  But  at  times,  the 
father  of  gods  and  men  is  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Ruler 
—  the  living  Providence  of  the  world  —  and  the  lesser 
gods  are  the  immortal  administrators  of  his  Divine  will 
throughout  the  lower  creation.  Forever  at  the  head  of 
the  universe  there  is  an  awful  spiritual  power ;  when  Zeus 
appears  with  a  distinct  and  positive  personality,  he  is  him- 
self subordinate  to  an  authority  which  elsewhere  is  one 
with  himself.  Wherever  either  he  or  the  other  gods  are 
made  susceptible  of  emotion,  the  Invisible  is  beyond  and 
above  them.  When  Zeus  is  the  personal  father  of  Sarpe- 
don,  and  his  private  love  conflicts  with  the  law  of  the  eter- 
nal order,  though  he  has  power  to  set  aside  the  law  he 
dares  not  break  it ;  but  in  the  midst  of  his  immortality, 
and  on  his  own  awful  throne,  he  weeps  tears  of  blood  in 
ineffectual  sorrow  for  his  dying  child.  And  again,  there  is 
a  power  supreme  both  over  Zeus  and  over  Poseidon,  of 
which  Iris  reminds  the  latter,  when  she  is  sent  to  rebuke 
him  for  his  disobedience  to  his  brother.  It  is  a  law,  she 
says,  that  the  younger  shall  obey  the  elder,  and  the  Erin- 
nys  will  revenge  its  breach  even  on  a  god. 

But  descending  from  the  more  difficult  Pantheon  among 
mankind,  the  Divine  law  of  justice  is  conceived  as  clearly 
as  we  in  this  day  can  conceive  it.  The  supreme  power 
is  the  same  immortal  lover  of  justice  and  the  same  hater 
of  iniquity ;  and  justice  means  what  we  mean  by  justice,  and 
iniquity  what  we  mean  by  iniquity.  There  is  no  diffidence, 
no  skepticism  on  this  matter  ;  the  moral  law  is  as  sure  as  day 
and  night,  summer  and  winter.  Thus  in  the  sixteenth  Iliad  — 

"  When  in  the  market-place  men  deal  unjustly,  and  the 
rulers  decree  crooked  judgment,  not  regarding  the  fear  of 


416  Homer. 

God,"  God  sends  the  storm,  and  the  earthquake,  and  the 
tempest,  as  the  executors  of  his  vengeance. 

Again,  Ulysses  says,  —  "  God  looks  upon  the  children  of 
men,  and  punishes  the  wrong-doer." 

And  ^Eumaeus,  —  "The  gods  love  not  violence  and 
wrong ;  but  the  man  whose  ways  are  righteous,  him  they 
honor." 

Even  when  as  mere  Olympians  they  put  off  their  celes- 
tial nature,  and  mix  in  earthly  strife,  and  are  thus  laid 
open  to  earthly  suffering,  a  mystery  still  hangs  about  them ; 
Diomed,  even  while  he  crosses  the  path  of  Ares,  feels  all 
the  while  "  that  they  are  short-lived  who  contend  with  the 
Immortals."  Ajax  boasts  that  he  will  save  himself  in  spite 
of  Heaven,  and  immediately  the  wave  dashes  him  upon  the 
rocks.  One  light  word  escaped  Ulysses  in  the  excitement 
of  his  escape  from  the  Cyclops,  which  nine  years  of  suffer- 
ing hardly  expiated. 

The  same  spirit  which  teaches  Christians  that  those  who 
have  no  earthly  friend  have  specially  a  friend  above  to 
care  for  and  to  avenge  them,  taught  the  lonians  a  proverb 
which  appears  again  and  again  in  Homer,  that  the  stranger 
and  the  poor  man  are  the  patrimony  of  God  ;  and  it  taught 
them,  also,  that  sometimes  men  entertained  the  Immortals 
unawares.  It  was  a  faith,  too,  which  was  more  than  words 
with  them ;  for  we  hear  of  no  vagrant  acts  or  alien  acts, 
and  it  was  sacrilege  to  turn  away  from  the  gate  whoever 
asked  its  hospitality.  Times  are  changed.  The  world  was 
not  so  crowded  as  it  is  now,  and  perhaps  rogues  were  less 
abundant ;  but  at  any  rate  those  antique  Greeks  did  what 
they  said.  We  say  what  they  said,  while  in  the  same  breath 
we  say,  too,  that  it  is  impossible  to  do  it. 

In  every  way,  the  dependence  of  man  on  a  special 
heavenly  Providence  was  a  matter  of  sure  and  certain  con- 
viction with  them.  Telemachus  appeals  to  the  belief  in  the 
Council  at  Ithaca.  He  questions  it  at  Pylos,  and  is  at  once 
rebuked  by  Athene.  Both  in  "  Iliad  "  and  "  Odyssey  "  to  live 


Homer.  417 

justly  is  the  steady  service  which  the  gods  require,  and 
their  favor  as  surely  follows  when  that  service  is  paid,  as  a 
Nemesis  sooner  or  later  follows  surely,  too,  on  the  evil-doers. 
But  without  multiplying  evidence,  as  we  easily  might, 
from  every  part  of  both  "  Iliad  "  and  "  Odyssey  "  the  skepti- 
cal and  the  believing  forms  of  thought  and  feeling  on  this 
very  subject  are  made  points  of  dramatic  contrast,  to  show 
off  the  opposition  of  two  separate  characters ;  and  this  is 
clear  proof  that  such  thoughts  and  feelings  must  have 
been  familiar  to  Homer's  hearers :  if  it  were  not  so,  his 
characters  would  have  been  without  interest  to  his  age  — 
they  would  have  been  individual,  and  not  universal ;  and 
no  expenditure  of  intellect,  or  passion,  would  have  made 
men  care  to  listen  to  him.  The  two  persons  who  through- 
out the  "Iliad"  standout  in  relief  in  contrast  to  each  other, 
are,  of  course,  Hector  and  Achilles ;  and  faith  in  God  (as 
distinct  from  a  mere  recognition  of  Him)  is  as  directly  the 
characteristic  of  Hector  as  in  Achilles  it  is  entirely  absent. 
Both  characters  are  heroic,  but  the  heroism  in  them  springs 
from  opposite  sources.  Both  are  heroic,  because  both 
are  strong ;  but  the  strength  of  one  is  in  himself,  and  the 
strength  of  the  other  is  in  his  faith.  Hector  is  a  patriot ; 
Achilles  does  not  know  what  patriotism  means  ;  —  Hector 
is  full  of  tenderness  and  human  affection ;  Achilles  is  self- 
enveloped.  Even  his  love  for  Patroclus  is  not  pure,  for 
Patroclus  is  as  the  moon  to  the  sun  of  Achilles,  and 
Achilles  sees  his  own  glory  reflected  on  his  friend.  They 
have  both  a  forecast  of  their  fate  ;  but  Hector,  in  his 
great  brave  way,  scoffs  at  omens ;  he  knows  that  there  is 
a  special  providence  in  the  fall  of  a  sparrow,  and  defies 
augury.  To  do  his  duty  is  the  only  omen  for  which  Hector 
cares;  and  if  death  must  be,  he  can  welcome  it  like  a  gal- 
lant man,  if  it  find  him  fighting  for  his  country.  Achilles 
is  moody,  speculative,  and  subjective ;  he  is  too  proud  to 
attempt  an  ineffectual  resistance  to  what  he  knows  to  be 
inevitable,  but  he  alternately  murmurs  at  it  and  scorns  it 

27 


418  Komer* 

Till  his  passion  is  stirred  by  his  friend's  death,  he  seems 
equally  to  disdain  the  greatness  of  life  and  the  littleness 
of  it  ;  the  glories  of  a  hero  are  not  worth  dying  for  ;  and 
like  Solomon,  and  almost  in  Solomon's  words,  he  complains 
that  there  is  one  event  to  all  :  — 

"Ev  6s  l    Tij.    $  £v  KdKbf  qi  Kdl  eai)?.(>r, 


To  gratify  his  own  spleen,  he  will  accept  an  inglorious  age 
in  Thessaly,  in  exchange  for  a  hero's  immortality  ;  as  again 
in  the  end  it  is  but  to  gratify  his  own  wounded  pride  that 
he  goes  out  to  brave  a  fate  which  he  scorns  while  he  knows 
that  it  will  subdue  him.  Thus,  Achilles  is  the  hero  of  the 
stern  human,  self-sufficing  spirit,  which  does  not  deny  or 
question  destiny,  but  seeing  nothing  in  it  except  a  cold, 
iron  law,  meets  force  with  force,  and  holds  up  against  it 
an  unbroken,  unbending  will.  Human  nature  is  at  its  best 
but  a  miserable  business  to  him  ;  death  and  sorrow  are  its 
inevitable  lot.  As  a  brave  man,  he  will  not  fear  such 
things,  but  he  will  not  pretend  to  regard  them  as  any  thing 
but  detestable  ;  and  he  comforts  the  old,  weeping  king  of 
Troy,  whose  age  he  was  himself  bringing  down  to  the 
grave  in  sorrow,  with  philosophic  meditations  on  the  vanity 
of  all  things,  and  a  picture  of  Zeus  mixing  the  elements  of 
life  out  of  the  two  urns  of  good  and  evil. 

Turn  to  Hector,  and  we  turn  from  shadow  into  sunlight. 
Achilles  is  all  self,  Hector  all  self-forgetfulness  ;  Achilles 
all  pride,  Hector  all  modesty.  The  confidence  of  Achilles 
is  in  himself  and  in  his  own  arm  ;  Hector  knows  (and 
the  strongest  expressions  of  the  kind  in  all  the  "  Iliad  "  arc 
placed  pointedly  in  Hector's  mouth)  that  there  is  no 
strength  except  from  above.  "  God's  will,"  he  says,  "  is 
over  all;  He  makes  the  strong  man  to  fear,  and  gives 
the  victory  to  the  weak,  if  it  shall  please  Him."  And  at 
last,  when  he  meets  Achilles,  he  answers  his  bitter  words, 
not  with  a  defiance,  but  calmly  saying,  "  I  know  that  thou 
art  mighty,  and  that  my  strength  is  far  less  than  thine  :  but 


Homer.  419 

these  things  lie  in  the  will  of  the  gods ;  and  I,  though 
weaker  far  than  thou,  may  yet  take  thy  life  from  thee,  if 
the  immortals  choose  to  have  it  so." 

So  far,  then,  on  the  general  fact  of  Divine  Providence, 
the  feeling  of  Homer,  and  therefore  of  his  countrymen, 
is  distinct  Both  the  great  poems  bearing  his  name  speak 
in  the  same  language.  But  beyond  the  general  fact,  many 
questions  rise  in  the  application  of  the  creed,  and  on  one  of 
these  (it  is  among  several  remarkable  differences  which  seem 
to  mark  the  "  Odyssey  "  as  of  a  later  age)  there  is  a  very  sin- 
gular discrepancy.  In  the  "  Iliad,"  the  life  of  man  on  this 
side  the  grave  is  enough  for  the  completion  of  his  destiny 
—  for  his  reward,  if  he  lives  nobly ;  for  his  punishment,  if 
he  be  base  or  wicked.  Without  repinings  or  skepticisms 
at  the  apparent  successes  of  bad  men,  the  poet  is  con- 
tented with  what  he  finds,  accepting  cheerfully  the  facts  of 
life  as  they  are  ;  it  never  seems  to  occur  to  him  as  seriously 
possible  that  a  bad  man  could  succeed  or  a  good  one  fail ; 
and  as  the  ways  of  Providence,  therefore,  require  no  vindi- 
cating, neither  his  imagination  nor  his  curiosity  tempts  him 
into  penetrating  the  future.  The  house  of  Hades  is  the 
long  home  to  which  men  go  when  dismissed  out  of  their 
bodies ;  but  it  is  a  dim,  shadowy  place,  of  which  we  see 
nothing,  and  concerning  which  no  conjectures  are  ventured. 
Achilles,  in  his  passion  over  Patroclus,  cries  out,  that  al- 
though the  dead  forget  the  dead  in  the  halls  of  the  de- 
parted, yet  that  he  will  remember  his  friend ;  and  through 
the  "  Iliad  "  there  is  nothing  clearer  than  these  vague  words 
to  show  with  what  hopes  or  fears  the  poet  looked  for- 
ward to  death.  So  far,  therefore,  his  faith  may  seem  im- 
perfect ;  yet,  perhaps,  not  the  less  noble  because  imperfect; 
religious  men  in  general  are  too  well  contented  with  the 
promise  of  a  future  life,  as  of  a  scene  where  the  seeming 
short-comings  of  the  Divine  administration  will  be  carried 
out  with  larger  equity.  But  whether  imperfect  or  not,  OT 
whatever  be  the  account  of  the  omission,  the  theory  of 


420  Homer. 

Hades  in  the  "  Odyssey  "  is  developed  into  far  greater  dis- 
tinctness ;  the  future  is  still,  indeed,  shadowy,  but  it  is  no 
longer  uncertain  ;  there  is  the  dreadful  prison-house,  with 
the  judge  upon  his  throne  —  and  the  darker  criminals  are 
overtaken  by  the  vengeance  which  was  delayed  in  life. 
The  thin  phantoms  of  the  great  ones  of  the  past  flit  to 
and  fro,  mourning  wearily  for  their  lost  mortality,  and  feed- 
ing on  its  memory.  And  more  than  this,  as  if  it  were 
beginning  to  be  felt  that  something  more  was  wanted 
after  all  to  satisfy  us  with  the  completeness  of  the  Divine 
rule,  we  have  a  glimpse  —  it  is  but  one,  but  it  is  like  a  ray 
of  sunshine  falling  in  upon  the  darkness  of  the  grave  —  "  of 
the  far-off  Elysian  fields  where  dwells  Rhadamanthus  with 
the  golden  hair,  where  life  is  ever  sweet,  and  sorrow  is  not7 
nor  winter,  nor  any  rain  or  storm,  and  the  never-dying 
zephyrs  blow  soft  and  cool  from  off  the  ocean." 

However  vague  the  filling  up  of  such  a  picture,  the  out- 
line is  correct  to  the  best  which  has  been  revealed  even  in 
Christianity,  and  it  speaks  nobly  for  the  people  among 
whom,  even  in  germ,  such  ideas  could  root  themselves. 
But  think  what  we  will  of  their  notions  of  the  future,  the 
old  Greek  faith,  considered  as  a  practical  and  not  a  theo- 
logical system,  is  truly  admirable,  clear,  rational,  and  moral ; 
if  it  does'  not  profess  to  deal  with  the  mysteries  of  evil  in 
the  heart,  it  is  prompt  and  stern  with  them  in  their  darker 
outward  manifestations,  and,  as  far  as  it  goes,  as  a  guide  in 
the  common  daily  business  of  life,  it  scarcely  leaves  any 
thing  unsaid. 

How  far  it  went  we  shall  see  in  the  details  of  the  life  it- 
self, the  most  important  of  which  in  the  eyes  of  a  modern 
will  be  the  social  organization  ;  and  when  he  looks  for  or- 
ganization, he  will  be  at  once  at  a  loss,  for  lie  will  find  the 
fact  of  government  yet  without  defined  form  —  he  will  find 
law,  but  without  a  public  sword  to  enforce  it ;  and  a  "  so- 
cial machine  "  moving  without  friction  under  the  easy  con- 
trol of  opinion.  There  are  no  wars  of  classes,  no  politics, 


Homer.  421 

no  opposition  of  interests,  —  a  sacred  feeling  of  the  will  of 
the  gods  keeping  every  one  in  his  proper  subordination. 
It  was  a  sacred  duty  that  the  younger  should  obey  the  el- 
der, that  the  servant  should  obey  his  master,  that  property 
should  be  respected ;  in  war,  that  the  leader  should  be 
obeyed  without  questioning;  in  peace,  that  public  ques- 
tions should  be  brought  before  the  assembly  of  the  people, 
and  settled  quietly  as  the  Council  determined.  In  this  as- 
sembly the  prince  presided,  and  beyond  this  presidency  his 
authority  at  home  does  not  seem  to  have  extended.  Of 
course  there  was  no  millennium  in  Ionia,  and  men's  pas- 
sions were  pretty  much  what  they  are  now.  Without  any 
organized  means  of  repressing  crime  when  it  did  appear, 
the  people  were  exposed  to,  and  often  suffered  under,  ex- 
treme forms  of  violence  —  violence  such  as  that  of  the 
suitors  at  Ithaca,  or  of  JEgisthus  at  Argos.  On  the  other 
hand,  what  a  state  of  cultivation  it  implies,  what  peace  and 
comfort  in  all  classes,  when  society  could  hold  together  for 
a  day  with  no  more  complete  defense.  And,  moreover, 
there  are  disadvantages  in  elaborate  police  systems.  Self- 
reliance  is  one  of  the  highest  virtues  in  which  this  world  is 
intended  to  discipline  us ;  and  to  depend  upon  ourselves 
even  for  our  own  personal  safety,  is  a  large  element  in 
moral  training. 

But  not  to  dwell  on  this,  and  to  pass  to  the  way  in  which 
the  men  of  those  days  employed  themselves. 

Our  first  boy's  feeling  with  the  "  Iliad  "  is,  that  Homer 
is  preeminently  a  poet  of  war ;  that  battles  were  his  own 
passion,  and  tales  of  battles  the  delight  of  his  listeners. 
His  heroes  appear  like  a  great  fighting  aristocracy,  such 
as  the  after  Spartans  were ;  Homer  himself  like  another 
Tyrtaeus,  and  the  poorer  occupations  of  life  too  menial  for 
their  notice  or  for  his.  They  seem  to  live  for  glory  —  the 
one  glory  worth  caring  for  only  to  be  won  upon  the  battle- 
field, and  their  exploits  the  one  worthy  theme  of  the  poet's 
song.  This  is  our  boyish  impression,  and,  like  other  such, 


422  Homer, 

it  is  very  different  from  the  truth.  If  war  had  been  a  pas 
sion  with  the  lonians,  as  it  was  with  the  Teutons  and  the 
Norsemen,  the  god  of  battles  would  have  been  supreme  in 
the  Pantheon  ;  and  Zeus  would  scarcely  have  called  Ares 
the  most  hateful  spirit  in  Olympus  — -  most  hateful,  because 
of  his  delight  in  war  and  carnage.  Mr.  Carlvle  looks  for- 

O  O  »/ 

ward  to  a  chivalry  of  labor.  He  rather  wishes  than  expects 
that  a  time  may  come  when  the  campaign  of  industry  against 
anarchic  Nature  may  gather  into  it  those  feelings  of  gal- 
lantry and  nobleness  which  have  found  their  vent  hitherto 
in  fighting  only.  The  modern  man's  work,  Mr.  Carlyle 
says,  is  no  longer  to  splinter  lances  or  break  down  walls ; 
but  to  break  soil,  to  build  barns  and  factories,  and  to  find 
a  high  employment  for  himself  in  what  hitherto  has  been 
despised  as  degrading.  How  to  elevate  labor  —  how  to 
make  it  beautiful  —  how  to  enlist  the  spirit  in  it  (for  in  no 
other  way  can  it  be  made  humanly  profitable),  that  is  the 
problem  which  he  looks  wistfully  to  the  future  to  solve  for 
us.  He  may  look  to  the  past  as  well  as  to  the  future  ;  in  the 
old  Ionia  he  will  find  all  for  which  he  wishes.  The  wise 
Ulysses  built  his  own  house  and  carved  his  own  bed. 
Princes  killed  and  cooked  their  own  food.  It  was  a  holy 
work  with  them  —  their  way  of  saying  grace  for  it ;  for 
they  offered  the  animal  in  his  death  to  the  gods,  and  they 
were  not  butchers,  but  sacrificing  priests.  Even  a  keeper 
of  swine  is  called  noble,  and  fights  like  a  hero ;  and  the 
young  princess  of  Phoeacia  —  the  loveliest  and  graceful- 
est  of  Homer's  women  —  drove  the  clothes-cart  and 
washed  linen  with  her  own  beautiful  hands.  Not  only  was 
labor  free,  —  for  so  it  was  among  the  early  Romans  ;  or 
honorable,  so  it  was  among  the  Israelites,  —  but  it  was 
beautiful  —  beautiful  in  the  artist's  sense,  as  perhaps  else- 
where it  has  never  been.  In  later  Greece  —  in  what  we 
call  the  glorious  period  —  toil  had  gathered  about  it  its 
modern  crust  of  supposed  baseness  —  it  was  left  to  slaves  ; 
and  wise  men,  in  their  philosophic  lecture-rooms,  spoke  of 


Homer.  42S 

it  as  unworthy  of  the  higher  specimens  of  cultivated  hu- 
manity. 

But  Homer  finds,  in  its  most  homely  forms,  fit  illustra« 
tions  for  the  most  glorious  achievements  of 'his  heroes  ;  and 
in  every  page  we  find,  in  simile  or  metaphor,  some  com- 
mon scene  of  daily  life  worked  out  with  elaborate  beauty. 
What  the  popular  poet  chooses  for  his  illustrations  are  as 
good  a  measure  as  we  can  have  of  the  popular  feeling,  and 
the  images  which  he  suggests  are,  of  course,  what  he  knows 
his  hearers  will  be  pleased  to  dwell  upon.  There  is  much 
to  be  said  about  this,  and  we  shall  return  to  it  presently ; 
in  the  mean  time,  we  must  not  build  on  indirect  evidence. 
The  designs  on  the  shield  of  Achilles  are,  together,  a  com- 
plete picture  of  Homer's  microcosm  ;  Homer  surely  never 
thought  inglorious  or  ignoble  what  the  immortal  art  of 
Hephaistos  condescended  to  imitate. 

The  first  groups  of  figures  point  a  contrast  which  is  ob- 
viously intentional ;  and  the  significance  becomes  sadly 
earnest  when  we  remember  who  it  was  that  was  to  be.u* 
the  shield.  The  moral  is  a  very  modern  one,  and  the  pict- 
ure might  be  called  by  the  modern  name  of  Peace  and 
War.  There  are  two  cities,  embodying  in  their  condition 
the  two  ideas.  In  one,  a  happy  wedding  is  going  forward  ; 
the  pomp  of  the  hymeneal  procession  is  passing  along  the 
streets  ;  the  air  is  full  of  music,  and  the  women  are  stand- 
ing at  their  doors  to  gaze.  The  other  is  in  the  terrors  of 
a  siege ;  the  hostile  armies  glitter  under  the  walls ;  the 
women  and  children  press  into  the  defense,  and  crowd  to  the 
battlements.  In  the  first  city,  a  quarrel  rises  ;  and  wrong 
is  made  right,  not  by  violence  and  fresh  wrong,  but  by  the 
majesty  of  law  and  order.  The  heads  of  the  families  are 
sitting  gravely  in  the  market-place,  the  cause  is  heard,  the 
compensation  set,  the  claim  awarded.  Under  the  walls  of 
the  other  city  an  ambush  lies,  like  a  wild  beast  on  the 
watch  for  its  prey.  The  unsuspecting  herdsmen  pass  on 
with  their  flocks  to  the  waterside  ;  the  spoilers  spring  from 


424  Jffomer. 

their  hiding-place,  and  all  is  strife,  and  death,  and  horror 
and  confusion.  If  there  were  other  war-scenes  on  the 
shield,  it  might  be  doubted  whether  Homer  intended  so 
strong  a  contrast  as  he  executed ;  but  fighting  for  its  own 
sake  was  evidently  held  in  slight  respect  with  him.  The 
forms  of  life  which  were  really  beautiful  to  him  follow  in  a 
series  of  exquisite  Rubens-like  pictures,  —  harvest  scenes 
and  village  festivals  ;  the  ploughing  and  the  vintage,  or  the 
lion-hunt  on  the  reedy  margin  of  the  river ;  and  he  de- 
scribes them  with  a  serene,  sunny  enjoyment  which  no 
other  old-world  art  or  poetry  gives  us  any  thing  in  the 
least  resembling.  Even  we  ourselves,  in  our  own  pastor- 
als, are  struggling  with  but  half  success,  after  what  Homer 
entirely  possessed.  What  a  majesty  he  has  thrown  into 
his  harvest  scene  !  The  yellow  corn  falling,  the  boys  fol- 
lowing to  gather  up  the  large  armfuls  as  they  drop  behind 
the  reapers  ;  in  the  distance,  a  banquet  preparing  under 
the  trees  ;  in  the  centre,  in  the  midst  of  his  workmen,  the 
king  sitting  in  mellow  silence,  sceptre  in  hand,  looking  on 
with  gladdened  heart  Again  we  see  the  ploughmen,  un- 
like what  are  to  be  seen  in  our  corn-grounds,  turning  their 
teams  at  the  end  of  the  furrow,  and  attendants  standing 
ready  with  the  wine-cup,  to  hand  to  them  as  they  pass. 
Homer  had  seen  these  things,  or  he  would  not  have  sung 
of  them  ;  and  princes  and  nobles  might  have  shared  such 
labor  without  shame,  when  kings  took  part  in  it,  and  gods 
designed  it,  and  the  divine  Achilles  bore  its  image  among 
his  insignia  in  the  field. 

Analogous  to  this,  and  as  part  of  the  same  feeling,  is 
that  intense  enjoyment  of  natural  scenery,  so  keen  in  Ho- 
mer, and  of  which  the  Athenian  poets  show  not  a  trace  ; 
as,  for  instance,  in  that  night  landscape  by  the  sea,  finished 
off  in  a  few  lines  only,  but  so  exquisitely  perfect !  The 
broad  moon,  gleaming  through  the  mist  as  it  parts  sud- 
denly from  off  the  sky ;  the  crags  and  headlands,  and  soft 
wooded  slopes,  shining  out  in  the  silver  light,  and  earth 
and  sea  transformed  into  fairy  land. 


Homer.  425 

We  spoke  of  Homer's  similes  as  illustrative  of  the  Ionic 
feelings  about  war.  War,  of  course,  was  glorious  to  him  — 
but  war  in  a  glorious  cause.  Wars  there  were  —  wars  in 
plenty,  as  there  have  been  since,  and- as  it  is  like  there  will 
be  for  some  time  to  come  ;  and  a  just  war,  of  all  human 
employments,  is  the  one  which  most  calls  out  whatever 
nobleness  there  is  in  man.  It  was  the  thing  itself,  the 
actual  fighting  and  killing,  as  apart  from  the  heroism  for 
which  it  makes  opportunities,  for  which  we  said  that  he 
showed  no  taste.  His  manner  shows  that  he  felt  like  a 
cultivated  man,  and  not  like  a  savage.  His  spirit  stirs  in 
him  as  he  goes  out  with  his  hero  to  the  battle  ;  but  there  is 
no  drunken  delight  in  blood ;  we  never  hear  of  warriors,  as  in 
that  grim  Hall  of  the  "  Nibelungcn,"  quenching  their  thirst 
in  the  red  stream  ;  never  any  thing  of  that  fierce  exultation 
in  carnage  with  which  the  war  poetry  of  so  many  nations, 
late  and  old,  is  crimsoned.  Every  thing,  on  the  contrary,  is 
contrived  so  as  to  soften  the  merely  horrible,  and  fix  our 
interest  only  on  what  is  grand  or  beautiful.  We  are  never 
left  to  dwell  long  together  on  scenes  of  death,  and  when 
the  battle  is  at  its  fiercest,  our  minds  are  called  off  by  the 
rapid  introduction  (either  by  simile  or  some  softer  turn  of 
human  feeling)  of  other  associations,  not  contrived,  as  an 
inferior  artist  would  contrive,  to  deepen  our  emotions,  but 
to  soften  and  relieve  them.  Two  warriors  meet,  and  ex- 
change their  high  words  of  defiance  ;  we  hear  the  grinding 
of  the  spear-head,  as  it  pierces  shield  and  breast-plate,  and 
the  crash  of  the  armor,  as  this  or  that  hero  falls.  But  at 
once,  instead  of  being  left  at  his  side  to  see  him  bleed,  we 
are  summoned  away  to  the  soft  water  meadow,  the  lazy 
river,  the  tall  poplar,  now  waving  its  branches  against  the 
sky,  now  lying  its  length  along  in  the  grass  beside  the 
water,  and  the  woodcutter  with  peaceful  industry  laboring 
and  lopping  at  it. 

In  the  thick  of  the  universal  melee,  when  the  stones  and 
arrows  are  raining  on  the  combatants,  and  some  furious 


426  Homer. 

hailstorm  is  the  slightest  illustration  with  which  we  should 
expect  him  to  heighten  the  effect  of  the  human  tempest,  so 
sure  Homer  is  that  he  has  painted  the  thing  itself  in  its 
own  intense  reality,  that  his  simile  is  the  stillest  phenome- 
non in  all  Nature  —  a  stillness  of  activity,  infinitely  ex- 
pressive of  the  density  of  the  shower  of  missiles,  yet  falling 
like  oil  on  water  on  the  ruffled  picture  of  the  battle  ;  the 
snow  descending  in  the  still  air,  covering  first  hills,  then 
plains  and  fields  and  farmsteads  ;  covering  the  rocks  down 
to  the  very  water's  edge,  and  clogging  the  waves  as  they 
roll  in.  Again,  in  that  fearful  death-wrestle  at  the  Grecian 
wall,  when  gates  and  battlements  are  sprinkled  over  with 
blood,  and  neither  Greeks  nor  Trojans  can  force  their  way 
against  the  other,  we  have,  first,  as  an  image  of  the  fight 
itself,  two  men  in  the  field,  with  measuring  rods,  disputing 
over  a  land  boundary ;  and  for  the  equipoise  of  the  two 
armies,  the  softest  of  all  home  scenes,  a  poor  working 
woman  weighing  out  her  wool  before  weaving  it,  to  earn  a 
scanty  subsistence  for  herself  and  for  her  children.  Of 
course  the  similes  are  not  all  of  this  land  ;  it  would  be 
monotonous  if  they  were  ;  but  they  occur  often  enough  to 
mark  their  meaning.  In  the  direct  narrative,  too,  we  see 
the  same  tendency.  Sarpedon  struck  through  the  thigh  is 
borne  off  the  field,  the  long  spear  trailing  from  the  wound, 
and  there  is  too  much  haste  to  draw  it  out.  Hector  flies 
.  past  him  and  has  no  time  to  speak ;  all  is  dust,  hurry,  and 
confusion.  Even  Homer  can  only  pause  for  a  moment ; 
but  in  three  lines  he  lays  the  wounded  hero  under  a  tree, 
he  brings  a  dear  friend  to  his  side,  and  we  refresh  ourselves 
in  a  beautiful  scene,  when  the  lance  is  taken  out,  and 
Sarpedon  faints,  and  comes  slowly  back  to  life,  with  the 
cool  air  fanning  him.  We  may  look  in  vain  through  the 
"  Nibelungen  Lied  "  for  any  thing  like  this.  The  Swabian 
poet  can  be  tender  before  the  battle,  but  in  the  battle  itself 
his  barbaric  nature  is  too  strong  for  him,  and  he  scents 
nothing  bat  blood.  In  the  "  Iliad,"  on  the  contrary,  the  very 


Homer.  427 

battles  of  the  gods,  grand  and  awful  as  they  are,  relieve 
rather  than  increase  the  human  horror.  In  the  magnifi- 
cent scene,  where  Achilles,  weary  with  slaughter,  pauses 
on  the  bank  of  the  Scamander,  and  the  angry  river-god, 
whose  course  is  checked  by  the  bodies  of  the  slain,  swells 
up  to  revenge  them  and  destroy  him,  the  natural  and  the 
supernatural  are  so  strangely  blended,  that  when  Poseidon 
lights  the  forest,  and  god  meets  god  and  element  meets 
element,  the  convulsion  is  too  tremendous  to  enhance  the 
fierceness  of  Achilles ;  it  concentrates  the  interest  on  itself, 
and  Achilles  and  Hector,  flying  Trojan  and  pursuing  Greek, 
for  the  time  melt  out  and  are  forgotten. 

\Ve  do  not  forget  that  there  is  nothing  of  this  kind,  no 
relief,  no  softening,  in  the  great  scene  at  the  conclusion  of 
the  "  Odyssey."  All  is  stern  enough  and  terrible  enough 
there ;  more  terrible,  if  possible,  because  more  distinct, 
than  its  modern  counterpart  in  Criemhildas  Hall.  But 
there  is  an  obvious  reason  for  this,  and  it  does  not  make 
against  what  we  have  been  saying.  It  is  not  delight  in 
slaughter,  but  it  is  the  stern  justice  of  revenge  which  we 
have  here  ;  not,  as  in  the  "  Iliad,"  hero  meeting  hero,  but 
the  long  crime  receiving  at  last  its  Divine  punishment ;  the 
breaking  of  the  one  storm,  which  from  the  beginning  has 
been  slowly  and  awfully  gathering. 

"With.  Homer's  treatment  of  a  battle-field,  and  as  illus- 
trating the  conclusion  which  we  argue  from  it,  we  are 
tempted  to  draw  parallels  from  two  modern  poets  —  one  a 
German,  who  was  taken  away  in  the  morning  of  his  life  ; 
the  other,  the  most  gifted  of  modern  Englishmen.  Each 
of  these  two  has  attempted  the  same  subject,  and  the  treat- 
ment in  each  case  embodies,  in  a  similar  manner,  modern 
ways  of  thinking  about  it. 

The  first  is  from  the  "  Albigenses  "  of  young  Lenau,  who 
has  since  died  lunatic,  we  have  heard,  as  he  was  not  un- 
likely to  have  died  with  such  thoughts  in  him.  It  is  the 
eve  of  one  of  those  terrible  struggles  at  Toulouse,  and  the 


428  Homer. 

poet's  imagination  is  hanging  at  moon-rise  over  the  scene. 
u  The  low  broad  field  scattered  over  thick  with  corpses,  all 
silent,  dead,  —  the  last  sob  spent,"  —  the  priest's  thanks- 
giving for  the  Catholic  victory  having  died  into  an  echo, 
and  only  the  "  vultures  crying  their  Te  Detini  laudamus." 

"  Hat  Gott  der  Herr  den  Korperstoff  erschaffen, 
Hat  ihn  hervorgebracht  ein  bbser  Geist, 
Daruber  stritten  sie  mit  alien  Waffen 
Und  werden  von  den  Vogeln  nun  gespeist, 
Die.  ohne  ihren  Ursprung  nachzufrageii, 
Die  Korper  da  sich  lassen  vohl  behagen." 

"  Was  it  God  the  Lord  who  formed  the  substance  of 
their  bodies  ?  or  did  some  evil  spirit  bring  it  forth  ?  It 
was  for  this  with  all  their  might  fliey  fought,  and  now 
they  are  devoured  there  by  the  wild  birds,  who  sit  gorg- 
ing merrily  over  their  carrion,  without  asking  from  whence 
it  came." 

In  Homer,  as  we  saw,  the  true  hero  is  master  over  death 
—  death  has  no  terror  for  him.  He  meets  it,  if  it  is  to  be, 
calmly  and  proudly,  and  then  it  is  over;  whatever  offensive 
may  follow  after  it.  is  concealed,  or  at  least  passed  lightly 
over.  Here,  on  the  contrary,  every  thing  most  offensive  is 
dwelt  upon  with  an  agonizing  intensity,  and  the  triumph 
of  death  is  made  to  extend,  not  over  the  body  only,  but 
over  the  soul,  whose  heroism  it  turns  to  mockery.  The 
cause  in  which  a  man  dies,  is  what  can  make  his  death 
beautiful ;  but  here  Nature  herself,  in  her  stern,  awful  way, 
is  reading  her  sentence  over  the  cause  itself  as  a  wild 
and  frantic  dream.  "We  ought  to  be  revolted  —  doubly 
revolted,  one  would  think,  and  yet  we  are  not  so ;  instead 
of  being  revolted,  we  are  affected  with  a  sense  of  vast,  sad 
magnificence.  Why  is  this  ?  Because  we  lose  sight  of  the 
scene,  or  lose  the  sense  of  its  horror,  in  the  tragedy  of  the 
spirit.  It  is  the  true  modern  tragedy  ;  the  note  which 
sounds  through  Shakespeare's  "  Sonnets,"  through  "  Ham- 
let," through  "  Faust ;  "  all  the  deeper  trials  of  the  modern 


Homer.  129 

heart  might  be  gathered  out  of  those  few  lines  :  the  sense 
of  wasted  nobleness  —  nobleness  spending  its  energies  upon 
what  time  seems  to  be  pronouncing  no  better  than  a  dream 
—  at  any  rate,  misgivings,  skeptic  and  distracting  ;  yet  the 
heart  the  while,  in  spite  of  the  uncertainty  of  the  issue, 
remaining  true  at  least  to  itself.  If  the  spirit  of  the  Al- 
bigensian  warriors  had  really  broken  down,  or  if  the  poet 
had  pointed  his  lesson  so  as  to  say,  Truth  is  a  lie ;  faith  is 
folly ;  eat,  drink,  and  die,  —  then  his  picture  would  have 
been  revolting ;  but  the  noble  spirit  remains,  though  it  is 
.borne  down  and  trifled  with  by  destiny,  and  therefore  it  is 
not  revolting,  but  tragic. 

Far  different  from  this  —  as  far  inferior  in  tone  to 
Lenau's  lines,  as  it  exceeds  them  in  beauty  of  workman- 
ship —  is  the  well-known  picture  of  the  scene  under  the 
wall  in  the  "  Siege  of  Corinth  " :  — 

"  He  saw  the  lean  dogs  beneath  the  wall 
Hold  o'er  the  dead  their  carnival; 
Gorging  and  growling  o'er  carcass  and  limb; 
They  were  too  busy  to  bark  at  him ! 
From  a  Tartar's  skull  they  had  stripped  the  flesh, 
As  ye  peel  tho  fig  when  its  fruit  is  fresh ; 
And  their  white  tusks  crunched  o'er  the  whiter  skull, 
As  it  slipped  through  their  jaws  when  their  edge  grew  dull, 
As  they  lazily  mumbled  the  bones  of  the  dead, 
When  they  scarce  could  rise  from  the  spot  where  they  fed; 
So  well  had  they  broken  a  lingering  fast 
With  those  who  had  fallen  for  that  night's  repast. 
And  Alp  knew,  by  the  turbans  that  rolled  on  the  sand, 
The  foremost  of  these  were  the  best  of  his  band: 

The  scalps  were  in  the  wild  dog's  maw, 
The  hair  was  tangled  round  his  jaw. 
Close  by  the  shore,  on  the  edge  of  the  gulf, 
There  sate  a  vulture  flapping  a  wolf, 
Who  had  stolen  from  the  hills,  but  kept  away, 
Scared  by  the  dogs,  from  the  human  prey; 
But  he  seized  on  his  share  of  a  steed  that  lay, 
Picked  by  the  birds,  on  the  sands  of  the  bay." 

For  a  parallel   to  the  horribleness  of  this  wonderfully 


430  Homer. 

painted  scene  we  need  not  go  to  the  "  Nibelungen,"  for  we 
shall  find  nothing  like  it  there :  we  must  go  back  to  the 
carved  slabs  which  adorned  the  banquet-halls  of  the  As- 
syrian kings,  where  the  foul  birds  hover  over  the  stricken 
fields,  and  trail  from  their  talons  the  entrails  of  the  slain. 

And  for  what  purpose  does  Byron  introduce  these 
frightful  images?  Was  it  in  contrast  to  the  exquisite 
moonlight  scene  which  tempts  the  renegade  out  of  his 
tent?  "Was  it  to  bring  his  mind  into  a  fit  condition  to 
be  worked  upon  by  the  vision  of  Francesca  ?  It  does  but 
mar  and  untune  the  softening  influences  of  Nature,  which 
might  have  been  rendered  more  powerful,  perhaps,  by 
some  slight  touch  to  remind  him  of  his  past  day's  work, 
but  are  blotted  out  and  paralyzed  by  such  a  mass  of  hor- 
rors. 

To  go  back  to  Homer. 

We  must  omit  for  the  present  any  notice  of  the  domestic 
pictures,  of  which  there  are  so  many,  in  the  palaces  of 
Ulysses,  of  Nestor,  or  of  Alcinous  ;  of  the  games,  so  manly, 
yet,  in  point  of  refinement,  so  superior  even  to  those  of 
our  own  Middle  Ages ;  of  the  supreme  good  of  life  as  the 
Greeks  conceived  it,  and  of  the  arts  by  which  they  en- 
deavored to  realize  that  good.  It  is  useless  to  notice  such 
things  briefly,  and  the  detail  would  expand  into  a  volume. 
But  the  impression  which  we  gather  from  them  is  the  same 
which  we  have  gathered  all  along  —  that  if  the  proper 
aim  of  all  human  culture  be  to  combine,  in  the  highest 
measure  in  which  they  are  compatible,  the  two  elements  of 
refinement  and  of  manliness,  then  Homer's  age  was  culti- 
vated to  a  degree  the  like  of  which  the  earth  has  not  wit- 
nessed since.  There  was  more  refinement  under  Pericles, 
as  there  is  more  in  modern  London  and  Paris  ;  but  there 
was,  and  there  is,  infinitely  more  vice.  There  was  more 
fierceness  (greater  manliness  there  never  was)  in  the  times 
of  feudalism.  But  take  it  for  all  in  all,  and  in  a  mere 
human  sense,  apart  from  any  other  aspect  of  the  wor'd 


Homer.  431 

which  is  involved  in  Christianity,  it  is  difficult  to  point  to 
a  time  when  life  in  general  was  happier,  and  the  character 
of  man  set  in  a  more  noble  form.  If  we  have  drawn 
the  picture  with  too  little  shadow,  let  it  be  allowed  for. 
The  shadow  was  there,  doubtless,  though  we  see  it  only 
in  a  few  dark  spots.  The  "  Margites  "  would  have  supplied 
the  rest,  but  the  "  Margites,"  unhappily  for  us,  is  lost. 
Even  heroes  have  their  littlenesses,  and  Comedy  is  truer 
to  the  details  of  littleness  than  Tragedy  or  Epic.  The 
grand  is  always  more  or  less  ideal,  and  the  elevation  of 
a  moment  is  sublimed  into  the  spirit  of  a  life.  Comedy, 
therefore,  is  essential  for  the  representing  of  men  ;  and 
there  were  times,  doubtless,  when  the  complexion  of  Aga- 
memnon's greatness  was  discolored,  like  Prince  Henry's, 
by  remembering,  when  he  was  weary,  that  poor  creature  — 
small  beer  —  i.  e.  if  the  Greeks  had  got  any, 

A.  more  serious  discoloration,  however,  we  are  obliged 
to  say  that  we  find  in  Homer  himself,  in  the  soil  or  taint 
which  even  he  is  obliged  to  cast  over  the  position  of 
women.  In  the  "  Iliad,"  where  there  is  no  sign  of  male 
slavery,  women  had  already  fallen  under  the  chain,  and 
though  there  does  not  seem  to  have  been  any  practice 
of  polygamy,  the  female  prisoners  fell,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
into  a  more  degraded  position.  It  is  painful;  too,  to  ob- 
serve that  their  own  feelings  followed  the  practice  of  the 
times,  and  that  they  composed  themselves  to  bear  with- 
out reluctance  whatever  their  destiny  forced  upon  them. 
When  Priam  ventured  into  the  Grecian  camp  for  Hector's 
body,  and  stood  under  the  roof  of  Achilles,  he  endured 
to  do  what,  as  he  says,  no  mortal  father  had  ever  yet  en- 
dured—  to  give  his  hand  to  his  son's. destroyer.  Briseis, 
whose  bed  was  made  desolate  by  the  hand  of  the  same 
Achilles,  finds  it  her  one  greatest  consolation,  that  the  con- 
queror stoops  to  choose  her  to  share  his  own.  And  when 
Hector  in  his  last  sad  parting  scene  anticipates  a  like  fate 
for  his  own  Andromache,  it  is  not  with  the  revolted  agony 


432  Homer. 

of  horror  with  which  such  a  possible  future  would  be  re- 
garded by  a  modern  husband  ;  nor  does  Andromache,  how- 
ever bitterly  she  feels  the  danger,  protest,  as  a  modern  wife 
would  do,  that  thero  was  no  fear  for  her  —  that  death  by 
sorrow's  hand,  or  by  her  own,  would  preserve  her  to  rejoin 
him. 

Xor,  again,  was  unfaithfulness,  of  however  long  duration, 
conclusively  fatal  against  u  wife  ;  for  we  meet  Helen,  after 
a  tweaty  years'  elopement,  again  the  quiet,  hospitable  mis- 
ires?  <n  the  Spartan  palace,  entertaining  her  husband's 
gyy/is  with  an  easy  matronly  dignity,  and  not  afraid  even 
in  Mttielaus's  presence  to  alaido  to  the  past  —  in  strong 
terms  j>f  self-reproach,  indeed,  but  with  nothing  like  de- 
spairing prostration.  Making  the  worst  of  this,  however, 
yet  ever*  in  this  respect  the  Homtric  Greeks  were  better 
than  their  contemporaries  in  Palestii.  3  ;  and  on  the  whole 
there  was,  perhaps,  no  time  anterior  ij  Christianity  when 
women  held  a  higher  place,  or  the  relt  tion  between  wife 
and  husband  wras  of  a  more  free  and  honorable  kind. 

For  we  have  given  but  one  side  of  the  picture.  When 
a  woman  can  be  the  theme  of  a  poet,  her  nature  cannot  be 
held  in  slight  esteem  ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  Penelope 
is  Homer's  heroine  in  the  "  Odyssey."  One  design,  at  least, 
which  Homer  had  before  him  was  to  vindicate  the  character 
of  the  virtuous  matron  against  the  stain  which  Cfyiemnes- 
tra  had  inflicted  on  -it.  Clytemnestra  has  every  advan- 
tage ;  Penelope  every  difficulty :  the  trial  of  the  former 
lasted  only  half  as  long  as  that  of  the  latter.  Agamemnon 
in  leaving  her  gave  herself  and  his  house  in  charge  to  a 
divine  uoioos,  a  heaven-inspired  prophet,  who  should  stand 
between  her  and  temptation,  and  whom  she  had  to  mur- 
der  before  her  passion  could  have  its  way.  Penelope 
had  to  bear  up  alone  for  twenty  weary  years,  without  a 
friend,  without  a  counselor,  and  with  even  a  child  whose 
constancy  was  wavering.  It  is  obvious  that  Homer  designed 
this  contrast.  The  story  of  the  Argos  tragedy  is  told  again 


Homer.  433 

and  again.  The  shade  of  Agamemnon  himself  forebodes 
a  fate  like  his  own  to  Ulysses.  It  is  Ulysses's  first  thought 
when  he  wakes  from  his  sleep  to  find  himself  in  his  own 
land  ;  and  the  scene  in  Hades,  in  the  last  book,  seems  only 
introduced  that  the  husband  of  Clytemnestra  may  meet 
the  shades  of  the  Ithacan  suitors,  and  learn,  in  their  own 
tale  of  the  sad  issue  of  their  wooing,  how  far  otherwise  it 
had  fared  with  Ulysses  than  with  himself.  Women,  there- 
fore, according  to  Homer,  were  as  capable  of  heroic  virtue 
as  men  were,  and  the  ideal  of  this  heroism  is  one  to  which 
we  have  scarcely  added. 

For  the  rest,  there  is  no  trace  of  any  oriental  seraglio 
system.  The  sexes  lived  together  in  easy  unaffected  in- 
tercourse. The  ladies  appeared  in  society  naturally  and 
gracefully,  and  their  chief  occupations  were  household 
matters,  care  of  clothes  and  linen,  and  other  domestic  ar- 
rangements. When  a  guest  came,  they  prepared  his  dress- 
ing-room, settled  the  bath,  and  arranged  the  convenience 
of  his  toilet-table.  In  their  leisure  hours,  they  were  to  be 
found,  as  now,  in  the  hall  or  the  saloon,  and  their  work- 
table  contained  pretty  much  the  same  materials.  Helen 
was  winding  worsted  as  she  entertained  Telemachus,  and 
Andromache  worked  roses  in  very  modern  cross-stitch.  A 
literalist  like  Mr.  Mackay,  who  finds  out  that  the  Israelites 
were  cannibals,  from  such  expressions  as  "drinking  the 
blood  of  the  slain,"  might  discover,  perhaps,  a  similar  un- 
pleasant propensity  in  an  excited  wish  of  Hecuba,  that  she 
might  eat  of  the  heart  of  Achilles  ;  but  in  the  absence  of 
other  evidence,  it  is  unwise  in  either  case  to  press  a  meta- 
phor ;  and  the  food  of  ladies,  wherever  Homer  lets  us  see 
it,  is  very  innocent  cake  and  wine,  with  such  fruits  as  were 
in  season.  To  judge  by  Nausicaa,  their  breeding  must 
have  been  exquisite.  Nausicaa  standing  still,  when  the 
uncouth  figure  of  Ulysses  emerged  from  under  the  wood, 
all  sea-slime  and  nakedness,  and  only  covered  with  a  girdle 
of  leaves  —  standing  still  to  meet  him  when  the  other  girls 


434  Homer. 

ran  away  tittering  and  terrified,  is  the  perfect  conception 
of  true  female  modesty ;  and  in  the  whole  scene  between 
them,  Homer  shows  the  most  finished  understanding  of  the 
delicate  and  tremulous  relations  which  occur  occasionally 
in  the  accidents  of  intercourse  between  highly  cultivated 
men  and  women,  and  which  he  could  only  have  learnt  by 
living  in  a  society  where  men  and  women  met  and  felt  in 
the  way  which  he  has  described. 

Who,  then,  was  Homer?  What  was  he?  When  did 
he  live  ?  History  has  absolutely  nothing  to  answer.  His 
poems  were  not  written  ;  for  the  art  of  writing  (at  any 
rate  for  a  poet's  purpose)  was  unknown  to  him.  There  is 
a  vague  tradition  that  the  "  Iliad,"  and  the  *  Odyssey,"  and  a 
comic  poem  called  the  "  Margites,"  were  composed  by  an 
Ionian  whose  name  was  Homer,  about  four  hundred  years 
before  Herodotus,  or  in  the  ninth  century  B.  c.  We  know 
certainly  that  these  poems  were  preserved  by  the  Rhapso- 
dists,  or  popular  reciters,  who  repeated  them  at  private 
parties  or  festivals,  until  writing  came  into  use,  and  they 
were  fixed  in  a  less  precarious  form.  A  later  story  was 
current,  that  we  owe  the  collection  to  Pisistratus  ;  but  an 
exclusive  claim  for  him  was  probably  only  Athenian  con- 
ceit. It  is  incredible  that  men  of  genius  in  Homer's  own 
land  —  Alcffius,  for  instance  —  should  have  left  such  a 
work  to  be  done  by  a  foreigner.  But  this  is  really  all 
which  is  known  ;  and  the  creation  of  the  poems  lies  in 
impenetrable  mystery.  Nothing  remains  to  guide  us, 
therefore,  except  internal  evidence  (strangely  enough,  it  is 
the  same  with  Shakespeare),  and  it  has  led  to  wild  conclu- 
sions ;  yet  the  wildest  is  not  without  its  use ;  it  has  com- 
monly something  to  rest  upon ;  and  internal  evidence  is  only 
really  valuable  when  outward  testimony  has  been  sifted  to 
the  uttermost.  The  present  opinion  seems  to  be,  that  each 
poem  is  unquestionably  the  work  of  one  man  ;  but  whether 
both  poems  are  the  work  of  the  same  is  yet  sub  judice. 
The  Greeks  believed  they  were  ;  and  that  is  much.  There 


Homer.  435 

are  remarkable  points  of  resemblance  in  style,  yet  not 
greater  than  the  resemblances  in  the  "  Two  Noble  Kins- 
men "  and  in  the  "  Yorkshire  Tragedy  "  to  "  Macbeth  "  and 
"  Hamlet ; "  and  there  are  more  remarkable  points  of  non- 
resemblance,  which  deepen  upon  iis  the  more  we  read.  On 
the  other  hand,  tradition  is  absolute.  If  the  style  of  the 
"  Odyssey  "  is  sometimes  unlike  the  "  Iliad,"  so  is  one  part  of 
the  "  Iliad  "  sometimes  unlike  another.  It  is  hard  to  conceive 
a  genius  equal  to  the  creation  of  either  "  Iliad  "  or  "  Odyssey  " 
to  have  existed  without  leaving  at  least  a  legend  of  his 
name ;  and  the  difficulty  of  criticizing  style  accurately  in 
an  old  language  will  be  appreciated  by  those  who  have 
tried  their  hand  in  their  own  language  with  the  disputed 
plays  of  Shakespeare.  There  are  heavy  difficulties  every 
way ;  and  we  shall  best  conclude  our  own  subject  by  not- 
ing down  briefly  the  most  striking  points  of  variation  of 
which  as  yet  no  explanation  has  been  attempted.  We  have 
already  noticed  several :  the  non-appearance  of  male  slavery 
in  the  "  Iliad  "  which  is  common  in  the  "  Odyssey  "  ;  the 
notion  of  a  future  state ;  and  perhaps  a  fuller  cultivation  in 
the  female  character.  Andromache  is  as  delicate  as  Nau- 
sicaa,  but  she  is  not  as  grand  as  Penelope  ;  and  in  marked 
contrast  to  the  feeling  expressed  by  Briseis,  is  the  passage 
where  the  grief  of  Ulysses  over  the  song  of  Demodocus  is 
compared  to  the  grief  of  a  young  wife  flinging  herself  on 
the  yet  warm  body  of  her  husband,  and  looking  forward  to 
her  impending  slavery  with  feelings  of  horror  and  repul- 
sion. But  these  are  among  the  slightest  points  in  which 
the  two  poems  are  dissimilar.  Not  only  are  there  slaves 
in  the  "  Odyssey,"  but  there  are  0/?res,  or  serfs,  an  order  with 
which  we  are  familiar  in  later  times,  but  which  again  are 
not  in  the  "  Iliad."  In  the  "  Odyssey  "  the  Trojans  are  called 
C7ri/3r?ro/)es  iTTTrwy,  which  must  mean  riders.  In  the  "  Iliad  " 
horses  are  never  ridden  ;  they  are  always  in  harness. 

Wherever  in  the  "  Odyssey  "  the  Trojan  war  is  alluded  to 
(and  it  is  very  often),  in  no  one  case  is  the  allusion  to  any 


436  Homer. 

thing  which  is  mentioned  in  the  "  Iliad."  We  hear  of  the 
wooden  horse,  the  taking  of  Troy,  the  death  of  Achilles, 
the  contention  of  Ulysses  with  Ajax  for  his  arms.  It 
might  be  said  that  the  poet  wished  to  supply  afterwards 
indirectly  what  he  had  left  in  the  "  Iliad  "  untold  ;  but  again, 
this  is  impossible,  for  a  very  curious  reason.  The  "  Iliad  " 
opens  with  the  wrath  of  Achilles,  which  caused  such  bit- 
ter woe  to  the  Achaians.  In  the  "  Odyssey  "  it  is  still  the 
wrath  of  Achilles  ;  but  singularly  not  with  Agamemnon, 
lut  with  Ulysses.  Ulysses  to  the  author  of  the  ';  Odyssey  " 
was  a  far  grander  person  at  Troy  than  he  appears  in  the 
"  Iliad."  In  the  latter  poem  he  is  great,  but  far  from  one 
of  the  greatest  ;  in  the  other,  he  is  evidently  the  next  to 
•Achilles  ;  and  it  seems  almost  certain  that  whoever  wrote 
the  "  Odyssey  "  was  working  from  some  other  legend  of  the 
war.  There  were  a  thousand  versions  of  it.  The  tale  of 
Ilium  was  set  to  every  lyre  in  Greece,  and  the  relative  po- 
sition of  the  heroes  Avas  doubtless  changed  according  to 
the  sympathies  or  the  patriotism  of  the  singer.  The  char- 
acter of  Ulysses  is  much  stronger  in  the  "  Odyssey  "  ;  and 
even  when  the  same  qualities  are  attributed  to  him  —  his 
soft-flowing  tongue,  his  cunning,  and  his  eloquence  —  they 
are  held  in  very  different  estimation.  The  Homer  of  the 
"  Iliad  "  has  little  liking  for  a  talker.  Thersites  is  his  pattern 
specimen  of  such  ;  and  it  is  the  current  scoff  at  unready 
warriors  to  praise  their  father's  courage,  and  then  to  add  — 

oAAo  Tt>;/  viov 


But  the  Phoeacian  Lord  who  ventured  to  reflect,  in  the 
"  Iliad  "  style,  on  the  supposed  unreadiness  of  Ulysses,  is 
taught  a  different  notion  of  human  excellence.  Ulysses 
tells  him  that  he  is  a  fool.  "  The  gods,"  Ulysses  says,  "  do 
not  give  all  good  things  to  all  men,  and  often  a  man  is 
made  unfair  to  look  upon,  but  over  his  ill  favor  they  fling, 
like  a  garland,  a  power  of  lovely  speech,  and  the  people 


Homer.  437 

delight  to  look  on  him.  He  speaks  with  modest  dignity, 
and  he  shines  among  the  multitude.  As  he  walks  through 
the  city,  men-  gaze  on  him  as  on  a  god." 

Differences  like  these,  however,  are  far  from  decisive. 
The  very  slightest  external  evidence  would  weigh  them  all 
down  together.  Perhaps  the  folloAving  may  be  of  more 
importance  :  — 

In  both  poems  there  are  "  questionings  of  destiny,"  as 
the  modern  phrase  goes.  The  thing  which  we  call  human 
life  is  looked  in  the  face  —  this  little  checkered  island  of 
lights  and  shadows,  in  the  middle  of  an  ocean  of  darkness  ; 
and  in  each  we  see  the  sort  of  answer  which  the  poet  finds 
for  himself,  and  which  might  be  summed  up  briefly  in  the 
last  words  of  Ecclesiastes,  "  Fear  God  and  keep  his  com- 
mandments :  for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man."  But  the 
world  bears  a  different  aspect,  and  the  answer  looks  differ- 
ent in  its  application.  In  the  "  Iliad,"  in  spite  of  the  gloom 
of  Achilles,  and  his  complaint  of  the  double  urn,  the  sense 
of  life,  on  the  whole,  is  sunny  and  cheerful.  There  is  no 
yearning  for  any  thing  beyond  —  nothing  vague,  nothing 
mystical.  The  earth,  the  men,  the  gods,  have  all  a  palpa- 
ble reality  about  them.  From  first  to  last  we  know  where 
we  are,  and  what  we  are  about.  In  the  "  Odyssey  "  we  are 
breathing  another  atmosphere.  The  speculations  on  the 
moral  mysteries  of  our  being  hang  like  a  mist  over  us  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end  ;  and  the  cloud  from  time  to  time 
descends  on  the  actors,  and  envelopes  them  with  a  preter- 
natural •  halo.  The  poet  evidently  dislikes  the  expression 
of  "  suffering  being  the  lot  of  mortals,"  as  if  it  had  been 
abused  already  for  ungodly  purposes.  In  the  opening  of 
the  first  book,  Zeus  reproves  the  folly  of  mortal  men  for 
casting  the  blame  upon  the  gods,  when  they  themselves,  in 
spite  of  all  the  gods  can  do  to  save  them,  persist  in  their 
o\vn  perverseness ;  and  we  never  know  as  we  go  on,  so  fast 
we  pass  from  one  to  the  other,  when  we  are  among  mere 
human  beings,  and  when  among  the  spiritual  or  the  mysti- 


438  Homer. 

cal.  Those  sea-nymphs,  those  cannibals,  those  enchant- 
resses, if  intended  to  be  real,  are  neither  mortal  nor  divine 
—  at  any  rate,  like  nothing  divine  which  we  had  seen  in 
Olympus,  or  on  the  plains  of  Ilium  ;  and  at  times  there  is 
a  strangeness  even  in  the  hero  himself.  Sometimes  it  is 
Ulysses  painfully  toiling  his  way  home  across  the  unknown 
ocean ;  sometimes  it  is  we  that  are  Ulysses,  and  that  un- 
known ocean  is  the  life  across  which  we  are  wandering, 
with  too  many  Circes,  and  Sirens,  and  "  Isles  of  Error  " 
in  our  path.  In  the  same  spirit  death  is  no  longer  the 
end  ;  and  on  every  side  long  vistas  seem  to  stretch  away 
into  the  infinite,  peopled  with  shadowy  forms. 

But,  as  if  this  palpable  initiation  into  the  unseen  were 
still  insufficient  or  unconvincing,  the  common  ground  on 
which  we  are  treading  sometimes  shakes  under  us,  and  we 
feel  as  Humboldt  describes  himself  to  have  felt  at  the  first 
shock  of  an  earthquake.  Strange  pieces  of  mysterious 
wildncss  are  let  fall  in  our  way,  coming  suddenly  on  us 
like  spectres,  and  vanishing  without  explanation  or  hint  of 
their  purpose.  What  are  those  Phoeacian  ships  meant  for 
which  required  neither  sail  nor  oar,  but  of  their  own  selves 
read  the  hearts  of  those  they  carried,  and  bore  them 
wherever  they  would  go  ?  —  or  the  wild  end  of  the  ship 
which  carried  Ulysses  home  ?  —  or  that  terrible  piece  of 
second  sight  in  the  Hall  at  Ithaca,  for  which  the  seer  was 
brought  from  Pylos  ?  —  or  those  islands,  one  of  which  is 
forever  wasting  while  another  is  born  into  being  to  com- 
plete the  number?  —  or  those  mystical  sheep  and  oxen, 
which  knew  neither  age  nor  death,  nor  ever  had  offspring 
born  to  them,  and  whose  flesh  upon  the  spits  began  to 
crawl  and  bellow  ?  —  or  Helen  singing  round  the  horse  in- 
side the  Trojan  walls,  when  every  Grecian  chiefs  heart 
fainted  in  him  as  he  thought  he  heard  the  voice  of  his  own 
dear  wife  far  away  beyond  the  sea  ? 

In  the  far  gates  of  the  Loestrygones,  -  where  such  a  nar- 
row rim  of  night  divided  day  from  day,  that  a  man  who 


Homer.  439 

needed  not  sleep  might  earn  a  double  hire,  and  the  cry  of 
the  shepherd  at  evening  driving  home  his  flock  was  heard 
by  the  shepherd  going  out  in  the  morning  to  pasture,"  we 
have,  perhaps,  some  tale  of  a  Phoenician  mariner,  who  had 
wandered  into  the  North  Seas,  and  seen  "  the  Norway  sun 
set  into  sunrise."  But  what  shall  we  say  to  that  Syrian 
isle,  "  where  disease  is  not,  nor  hunger,  nor  thirst,  and 
where,  when  men  grow  old,  Apollo  comes  with  Artemis, 
and  slays  them  with  his  silver  bow  ?  "  There  is  nothing  in 
the  "  Iliad  "  like  any  of  these  stories. 

Yet,  when  all  is  said,  it  matters  little  who  wrote  the 
poems.  Each  is  so  magnificent,  that  to  have  written  both 
could  scarcely  have  increased  the  greatness  of  the  man 
who  had  written  one ;  and  if  there  were  two  Homers,  the 
earth  is  richer  by  one  more  divine-gifted  man  than  we  had 
known.  After  all,  it  is  perhaps  more  easy  to  believe  that 
the  differences  which  we  seem  to  see  arise  from  Homer's 
own  choice  of  the  material  which  best  suited  two  works  so 
different,  than  that  Nature  was  so  largely  prodigal  as  to 
have  created  in  one  age  and  in  one  people  two  such  men ; 
for  whether  one  or  two,  the  authors  of  the  "  Iliad  "  and  the 
"  Odyssey  "  stand  alone  with  Shakespeare  far  awav  above 
mankind. 


THE   LIVES   OF   THE   SAINTS. 


1850. 

IF  the  enormous  undertaking  of  the  Bollandist  editors 
had  been  completed,  it  would  have  contained  the  histories 
of  25,000  saints.  So  many  the  Catholic  Church  acknowl- 
edged and  accepted  as  her  ideals  —  as  men  who  had  not 
only  done  her  honor  by  the  eminence  of  their  sanctity,  but 
who  had  received  while  on  earth  an  openly  divine  recogni- 
tion of  it  in  gifts  of  supernatural  power.  And  this  vast 
number  is  but  a  selection  ;  the  editors  chose  only  out  of 
the  mass  before  them  what  was  most  noteworthy  and  trust- 
worthy, and  what  was  of  catholic  rather  than  of  national 
interest.  It  is  no  more  than  a  fraction  of  that  singular 
mythology  which  for  so  many  ages  delighted  the  Christian 
world,  which  is  still  held  in  external  reverence  among  the 
Romanists,  and  of  which  the  modern  historians,  provoked 
by  its  feeble  supernaturalism,  and  by  the  entire  absence 
of  critical  ability  among  its  writers  to  distinguish  between 
fact  and  fable,  have  hitherto  failed  to  speak  a  reasonable 
word.  Of  the  attempt  in  our  own  day  to  revive  an  interest 
in  them  we  shall  say  little  in  this  place.  The  "  Lives " 
have  no  form  or  beauty  to  give  them  attraction  in  them- 
selves ;  and  for  their  human  interest  the  broad  atmosphere 
of  the  world  suited  ill  with  these  delicate  plants,  which  had 
grown  up  under  the  shadow  of  the  convent  wall ;  they  were 
exotics,  not  from  another  climate,  but  from  another  age ; 
the  breath  of  scorn  fell  on  them,  and  having  no  root  in  the 
hearts  and  beliefs  of  men  any  more,  but  only  in  the  sent!- 


The.  Lives  of  the  Saints.  441 

mentalities  and  make-beliefs,  they  withered  and  sank. 
And  yet,  in  their  place  as  historical  phenomena,  the  le- 
gends of  the  saints  are  as  remarkable  as  any  of  the  Pagan 
mythologies  ;  to  the  full  as  remarkable,  perhaps  far  more 
so,  if  the  length  and  firmness  of  hold  they  once  possessed 
on  the  convictions  of  mankind  is  to  pass  for  any  thing  in 
the  estimate  —  and  to  ourselves  they  have  a  near  and 
peculiar  interest,  as  spiritual  facts  in  the  growth  of  the 
Catholic  faith. 

Philosophy  has  rescued  the  old  theogonies  from  ridicule ; 
their  extravagances,  even  the  most  grotesque  of  them,  can 
be  now  seen  to  have  their  root  in  an  idea,  often  a  deep 
one,  representing  features  of  natural  history  or  of  meta- 
physical speculation,  and  we  do  not  laugh  at  them  any 
more.  In  their  origin,  they  were  the  consecration  of  the 
first-fruits  of  knowledge  ;  the  expression  of  a  real  reveren- 
tial belief.  Then  time  did  its  work  on  them  ;  knowledge 
grew,  and  they  could  not  grow ;  they  became  monstrous 
and  mischievous,  and  were  driven  out  by  Christianity  with 
scorn  and  indignation.  But  it  is  with  human  institutions 
as  it  is  with  men  themselves ;  we  are  tender  with  the  dead 
when  their  power  to  hurt  us  has  passed  away;  and  as  Pa- 
ganism can  never  more  be  dangerous,  we  have  been  able 
to  command  a  calmer  attitude  towards  it,  and  to  detect 
under  its  most  repulsive  features  sufficient  latent  elements 
of  genuine  thought  to  satisfy  us  that  even  in  their  darkest 
aberrations  men  are  never  wholly  given  over  to  falsehood 
and  absurdity.  When  philosophy  has  done  for  mediaeval 
mythology  what  it  has  done  for  Hesiod  and  for  the  "  Ed  da," 
we  shall  find  there  also  at  least  as  deep  a  sense  of  the 
awfulness  and  mystery  of  life,  and  we  shall  find  a  moral 
element  which  the  Pagans  never  had.  The  lives  of  the 
saints  are  always  simple,  often  childish,  seldom  beautiful  5 
yet,  as  Goethe  observed,  if  without  beauty,  they  are  always 
good. 

And  as  a  phenomenon,  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves  on 


442  -The  Lives-  of  the  Saints. 

the  magnitude  of  the  Christian  hagiology.  The  Bollandists 
were  restricted  on  many  sides.  They  took  only  what  was 
in  Latin  —  while  every  country  in  Europe  had  its  own 
home  growth  in  its  own  language  —  and  thus  many  of  the 
most  characteristic  of  the  lives  are  not  to  be  found  at  all 
in  their  collection.  And  again,  they  took  but  one  life  of 
each  saint,  composed  in  all  cases  late,  and  compiled  out  of 
the  mass  of  various  shorter  lives  which  had  grown  up  in 
different  localities  out  of  popular  tradition  ;  so  that  many 
of  their  longer  productions  have  an  elaborate  literary  char- 
acter, with  an  appearance  of  artifice,  which,  till  we  know 
how  they  came  into  existence,  might  blind  us  to  the  vast 
width  and  variety  of  the  traditionary  sources  from  which 
they  are  drawn.  In  the  twelfth  century  there  were  sixty- 
six  lives  extant  of  St.  Patrick  alone ;  and  that  in  a  country 
where  every  parish  had  its  own  special  saint  and  special 
legend  of  him.  These  sixty-six  lives  may  have  contained 
(Mr.  Gibbon  says  must  have  contained)  at  least  as  many 
thousand  lies.  Perhaps  so.  To  severe  criticism,  even  the 
existence  of  a  single  apostle,  St.  Patrick,  appears  problem- 
atical. But  at  least  there  is  the  historical  fact,  about  which 
there  can  be  no  mistake,  that  the  stories  did  grow  up  in 
some  way  or  other,  that  they  were  repeated,  sung,  listened 
to,  written,  and  read ;  that  these  lives  in  Ireland,  and  all 
over  Europe  and  over  the  earth,  wherever  the  Catholic 
faith  was  preached,  stories  like  these,  sprang  out  of  the 
heart  of  the  people,  and  grew  and  shadowed  over  the  en- 
tire believing  mind  of  the  Catholic  world.  Wherever 
church  was  founded,  or  soil  was  consecrated  for  the  long 
resting-place  of  those  who  had  died  in  the  faith ;  wher- 
ever the  sweet  bells  of  convent  or  of  monastery  were  heard 
in  the  evening  air,  charming  the  unquiet  world  to  rest  and 
remembrance  of  God,  there  dwelt  the  memory  of  some 
Apostle  who  had  laid  the  first  stone,  there  was  the  sepul- 
chre of  some  martyr  whose  relics  reposed  beneath  the 
altar,  of  some  confessor  who  had  suffered  there  for  his 


The  Lives  oj  the  Saints.  443 

Master's  sake,  of  some  holy  ascetic  who  in  silent  self -chosen 
austerity  had  woven  a  ladder  there  of  prayer  and  penance, 
on  which  the  angels  of  God  were  believed  to  have  ascended 
and  descended.  It  is  not  a  phenomenon  of  an  age  or  of  a 
century ;  it  is  characteristic  of  the  history  of  Christianity. 
From  the  time  when  the  first  preachers  of  the  faith  passed 
out  from  their  homes  by  that  quiet  Galilean  lake,  to  go  to 
and  fro  over  the  earth,  and  did  their  mighty  work,  and  at 
last  disappeared  and  were  not  any  more  seen,  these  sacred 
legends  began  to  grow.  Those  who  had  once  known  the 
Apostles,  who  had  drawn  from  their  lips  the  blessed  mes- 
sage of  light  and  life,  one  and  all  would  gather  together 
what  fragments  they  could  find  of  their  stories.  Rumors 
blew  in  from  all  the'  winds.  They  had  been  seen  here, 
had  been  seen  there,  in  the  farthest  corners  of  the  earth, 
preaching,  contending,  suffering,  prevailing.  Affection  did 
not  stay  to  scrutinize.  When  some  member  of  a  family 
among  ourselves  is  absent  in  some  far  place  from  which 
sure  news  of  him  comes  slowly  and  uncertainly ;  if  he  has 
been  in  the  army,  or  on  some  dangerous  expedition,  or  at 
sea,  or  anywhere  where  real  or  imaginary  dangers  stimu- 
late anxiety  ;  or  when  one  is  gone  away  from  us  altogether 
—  fallen  perhaps  in  battle  —  and  when  the  story  of  his  end 
can  be  collected  but  fitfully  from  strangers,  who  only  knew 
his  name,  but  had  heard  him  nobly  spoken  of;  the  faint- 
est threads  are  caught  at ;  reports,  the  vagueness  of  which 
might  be  evident  to  indifference,  are  to  love  strong  grounds 
of  confidence,  and  "  trifles  light  as  air "  establish  them- 
selves as  certainties.  So,  in  those  first  Christian  commu- 
nities, travellers  came  through  from  east  and  west ;  legions 
on  the  march,  or  caravans  of  wandering  merchants ;  and 
one  had  been  in  Rome,  and  seen  Peter  disputing  with 
Simon  Magus  ;  another  in  India,  where  he  had  heard  St. 
Thomas  preaching  to  the  Brahmins ;  a  third  brought  with 
him,  from  the  wilds  of  Britain,  a  staff  which  he  had  cut,  as 
he  said,  from  a  thorn-tree,  the  seed  of  which  St.  Joset>b 


444  The  Lives  of  the  Saints. 

had  sown  there,  and  which  had  grown  to  its  full  size  in  a 
single  night,  making  merchandise  of  the  precious  relic  out 
of  the  credulity  of  the  believers.  So  the  legends  grew,  and 
were  treasured  up,  and  loved,  and  trusted ;  and,  alas  !  all 
which  we  have  been  able  to  do  with  them  is  to  call  them 
lies,  and  to  point  a  shallow  moral  on  the  impostures  and 
credulities  of  the  early  Catholics.  An  atheist  could  not 
wish  us  to  say  more.  If  we  can  really  believe  that  the 
Christian  Church  was  made  over  in  its  very  cradle  to  lies 
and  to  the  father  of  lies,  and  was  allowed  to  remain  in  his 
keeping,  so  to  say,  till  yesterday,  he  will  not  much  trouble 
himself  with  any  faith  which  after  such  an  admission  we 
may  profess  to  entertain.  For,  as  this  spirit  began  in  the 
first  age  in  which  the  Church  began  to  have  a  history,  so 
it  continued  so  long  as  the  Church  as  an  integral  body  re- 
tained its  vitality,  and  only  died  out  in  the  degeneracy 
which  preceded  and  which  brought  on  the  Reformation. 
For  fourteen  hundred  years  these  stories  held  their  place, 
and  rang  on  from  age  to  age,  from  century  to  century ;  as 
the  new  faith  widened  its  boundaries,  and  numbered  ever 
more  and  more  great  names  of  men  and  women  who  had 
fought  and  died  for  it,  so  long  their  histories,  living  in  the 
hearts  of  those  for  whom  they  labored,  laid  hold  of  them 
and  filled  them ;  and  the  devout  imagination,  possessed 
with  what  was  often  no  more  than  the  rumor  of  a  namer 
bodied  it  out  into  life,  and  form,  and  reality.  And  doubt- 
less, if  we  try  them  by  any  historical  canon,  we  have  to  say 
that  quite  endless  untruths  grew  in  this  way  to  be  believed 
among  men ;  and  not  believed  only,  but  held  sacred,  pas- 
sionately and  devotedly ;  not  filling  the  history  books  only, 
not  only  serving  to  amuse  and  edify  the  refectory,  or  to 
furnish  matter  for  meditation  in  the  cell,  but  claiming  clays 
for  themselves  of  special  remembrance,  entering  into  litur- 
gies and  inspiring  prayers,  forming  the  spiritual  nucleus  of 
the  hopes  and  fears  of  millions  of  human  souls. 

From  the  hard  barren  standing  ground  of  the  fact  idol 


The  Lives  of  the  Saints.  445 

ater,  what  a  strange  sight  must  be  that  still  mountain-peak 
on  the  wild  west  Irish  shore,  where,  for  more  than  ten  cen- 
turies, a  rude  old  bell  and  a  carved  chip  of  oak  have  wit- 
nessed, or  seemed  to  witness,  to  the  presence  long  ago 
there  of  the  Irish  apostle  ;  and  where,  in  the  sharp  crys- 
tals of  the  trap  rock,  a  path  has  been  worn  smooth  by  the 
bare  feet  and  bleeding  knees  of  the  pilgrims,  who  still,  in 
the  August  weather,  drag  their  painful  way  along  it  as  they 
have  done  for  a  thousand  years.  Doubtless  the  "  Lives  of 
the  Saints  "  are  full  of  lies.  Are  there  none  in  the  "  Iliad  ?  " 
or  in  the  legends  of  JEneas  ?  Were  the  stories  sung  in 
the  liturgy  of  Eleusis  all  so  true  ?  so  true  as  fact  ?  Are 
the  songs  of  the  Cid  or  of  Siegfried  true  ?  We  say  noth- 
ing of  the  lies  in  these  ;  but  why  ?  Oh,  it  will  be  said, 
but  they  are  fictions ;  they  were  never  supposed  to  be  true. 
But  they  were  supposed  to  be  true,  to  the  full  as  true  as 
the  "  Legenda  Aurea."  Oh,  then,  they  are  poetry ;  and 
besides,  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  Christianity.  Yes, 
that  is  it ;  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  Christianity.  Re- 
ligion has  grown  such  a  solemn  business  with  us,  and  we 
bring  such  long  faces  to  it,  that  we  cannot  admit  or  con- 
ceive to  be  at  all  naturally  admissible  such  a  light  compan- 
ion as  the  imagination.  The  distinction  between  secular 
and  religious  has  been  extended  even  to  the  faculties ;  and 
we  cannot  tolerate  in  others  the  fullness  and  freedom 
which  we  have  lost  or  rejected  for  ourselves.  Yet  it  has 
been  a  fatal  mistake  with  the  critics.  They  found  them- 
selves off  the  recognized  ground  of  Romance  and  Pagan- 
ism, and  they  failed  to  see  the  same  principles  at  work, 
though  at  work  with  new  materials.  •  In  the  records  of  all 
human  affairs,  it  cannot  be  too  often  insisted  on  that  two 
kinds  of  truth  run  forever  side  by  sirfe,  or  ~ather,  crossing 
in  and  out  with  each  other,  form  the  warp  and  the  woof  of 
the  colored  web  which  we  call  •  history :  the  one,  the  literal 
and  external  truths  corresponding  to  the  eternal  and  as  yet 
undiscovered  laws  of  fact ;  the  other,  the  truths  of  feeling 


446  The  Lives  of  the  Saints. 

and  of  thought,  which  embody  themselves  either  in  dis- 
torted pictures  of  outward  things,  or  in  some  entirely  new 
creation  —  sometimes  moulding  and  shaping  real  history  ; 
sometimes  taking  the  form  of  heroic  biography,  of  tradi- 
tion, or  popular  legend ;  sometimes  appearing  as  recog- 
nized fiction  in  the  epic,  the  drama,  or  the  novel.  It  is 
useless  to  tell  us  that  this  is  to  confuse  truth  and  falsehood. 
We  are  stating  a  fact,  not  a  theory  ;  and  if  it  makes  truth 
and  falsehood  difficult  to  distinguish,  that  is  Nature's  fault, 
not  ours.  Fiction  is  only  false,  when  it  is  false,  not  to  fact, 
else  how  could  it  be  fiction  ?  but  when  it  is  —  to  laic.  To 
try  it  by  its  correspondence  to  the  real  is  pedantry.  Imag- 
ination creates  as  Nature  creates,  by  the  force  which  is  in 
man,  which  refuses  to  be  restrained  ;  we  cannot  help  it,  and 
we  are  only  false  when  we  make  monsters,  or  when  we  pre- 
tend that  our  inventions  are  facts,  when  we  substitute  truths 
of  one  kind  for  truths  of  another  ;  when  we  substitute,  — 
and  again  we  must  say  when  we  intentionally  substitute  :  — 
whenever  persons,  and  whenever  facts  seize  strongly  on 
the  Imagination  (and  of  course  when  there  is  any  thing 
remarkable  in  them  they  must  and  will  do  so),  invention 
glides  into  the  images  which  form  in  our  minds ;  so  it  must 
be,  and  so  it  ever  has  been,  from  the  first  legends  of  a  cos- 
mogony to  the  written  life  of  the  great  man  who  died  last 
year  or  century,  or  to  the  latest  scientific  magazine.  "We 
cannot  relate  facts  as  they  are ;  they  must  first  pass, 
through  ourselves,  and  we  are  more  or  less  than  mortal  if 
they  gather  nothing  in  the  transit.  The  great  outlines 
alone  lie  around  us  as  imperative  and  constraining;  the 
detail  we  each  fill  up  variously,  according  to  the  turn  of  our 
sympathies,  the  extent  of  our  knowledge,  or  our  general  the- 
ories of  things :  and  therefore  it  may  be  said  that  the  only 
literally  true  history  possible  is  the  history  which  mind  has 
left  of  itself  in  all  the  changes  through  which  it  has  passed. 
Suetonius  is  to  the  full  as  extravagant  and  superstitious 
as  Surius,  and  Suetonius  was  most  laborious  and  careful, 


The  Lives  of  the  Saints.  447 

and  was  the  friend  of  Tacitus  and  Pliny.  Suetonius  gives 
us  prodigies,  where  Surius  has  miracles,  but  that  is  all  the 
difference ;  each  follows  the  form  of  the  supernatural 
which  belonged  to  the  genius  of  his  age.  Plutarch  writes 
a  life  of  Lycurgus,  with  details  of  his  childhood,  and  of 
the  trials  and  vicissitudes  of  his  age ;  and  the  existence  of 
Lycurgus  is  now  quite  as  questionable  as  that  of  St.  Pa- 
trick or  of  St.  George  of  England. 

No  rectitude  of  intention  will  save  us  from  mistakes. 
Sympathies  and  antipathies  are  but  synonyms  of  prejudice, 
and  indifference  is  impossible.  Love  is  blind,  and  so  is 
every  other  passion.  Love  believes  eagerly  what  it  de- 
sires ;  it  excuses  or  passes  lightly  over  blemishes,  it  dwells 
on  what  is  beautiful ;  while  dislike  sees  a  tarnish  on  what 
is  brightest,  and  deepens  faults  into  vices.  Do  we  believe 
that  all  this  is  a  disease  of  unenlightened  times,  and  that 
in  our  strong  sunlight  only  truth  can  get  received  ?  —  then 
let  us  contrast  the  portrait,  for  instance,  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel  as  it  is  drawn  in  the  Free  Trade  Hall  at  Manchesie,  ,l 
at  the  county  meeting,  and  in  the  Oxford  Common  Room. 
It  is  not  so.  Faithful  and  literal  history  is  possible  only 
to  an  impassive  spirit.  Man  will  never  write  it,  until  per- 
fect knowledge  and  perfect  faith  in  God  shall  enable  him 
to  see  and  endure  every  fact  in  its  reality ;  until  perfect 
love  shall  kindle  in  him  under  its  touch  the  one  just  emo- 
tion which  is  in  harmony  with  the  eternal  order  of  all 
things. 

How  far  we  are  in  these  days  from  approximating  to 
such  a  combination  we  need  not  here  insist.  Criticism  in 
the  hands  of  men  like  Niebuhr  seems  to  have  accomplished 
great  intellectual  triumphs ;  and  in  Germany  and  France, 
and  among  ourselves,  we  have  our  new  schools  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  history :  yet  their  real  successes  have  hitherto 
only  been  destructive.  When  philosophy  reconstructs,  it 
does  nothing  but  project  its  own  idea ;  when  it  throws  off 
i  Written  in  1850. 


448  TJie  Lives  of  the  Saints* 

tradition,  it  cannot  work  without  a  theory :  and  what  is  a 
theory  but  an  imperfect  generalization  caught  up  by  a  pre- 
disposition? What  is  Comte's  great  division  of  the  eras 
but  a  theory,  and  facts  are  but  as  clay  in  his  hands*  which 
he  can  mould  to  illustrate  it,  as  every  clever  man  will  find 
facts  to  be,  let  his  theory  be  what  it  will  ?  Intellect  can 
destroy,  but  it  cannot  restore  life  ;  call  in  the  creative  fac- 
ulties —  call  in  Love,  Idea,  Imagination,  and  we  have  liv- 
ing figures,  but  we  cannot  tell  whether  they  are  figures 
which  ever  lived  before.  The  high  faith  in  which  Love 
and  Intellect  can  alone  unite  in  their  fullness,  has  not  yet 
found  utterance  in  modern  historians. 

The  greatest  man  who  has  as  yet  given  himself  to  the 
recording  of  human  affairs  is,  beyond  question,  Cornelius 
Tacitus.  Alone  in  Tacitus  a  serene  calmness  of  insight 
was  compatible  with  intensity  ot  feeling.  He  took  no  side ; 
he  may  have  been  Imperialist,  he  may  have  been  Repub- 
lican, but  he  has  left  no  sign  whether  he  was  either ;  he 
appears  to  have  sifted  facts  with  scrupulous  integrity :  to 
administer  his  love,  his  scorn,  his  hatred,  according  only  to 
individual  merit :  and  his  sentiments  are  rather  felt  by  the 
reader  in  the  life-like  clearness  of  his  portraits,  than  ex- 
pressed in  words  by  himself.  Yet  such  a  power  of  seeing 
into  things  was  only  possible  to  him,  because  there  was  no 
party  left  with  which  he  could  determinedly  side,  and  no 
wide  spirit  alive  in  Rome  through  which  he  could  feel. 
The  spirit  of  Rome,  the  spirit  of  life  had  gone  away  to 
seek  other  forms,  and  the  world  of  Tacitus  was  a  heap  of 
decaying  institutions ;  a  stage  where  men  and  women,  as 
they  themselves  were  individually  base  or  noble,  played 
over  their  little  parts.  Life  indeed  was  come  into  the 
world,  was  working  in  it,  and  silently  shaping  the  old  dead 
corpse  into  fresh  and  beautiful  being.  Tacitus  alludes  to 
it  once  only,  in  one  brief  scornful  chapter ;  and  the  most 
poorly  gifted  of  those  forlorn  biographers  whose  unreason- 
ing credulity  was  piling  up  the  legends  of  St.  Mary  and 


The  Lives  of  the  /Saints.  449 

the  Apostles,  which  now  drive  the  ecclesiastical  historian 
to  despair,  knew  more,  in  his  divine  hope  and  faith,  of  the 
real  spirit  which  had  gone  out  among  mankind,  than  the 
keenest  and  gravest  intellect  which  ever  set  itself  to  con 
template  them. 

And  now  having  in  some  degree  cleared  the  ground  of 
difficulties,  let  us  go  back  to  the  "  Lives  of  the  Saints."  If 
Bede  tells  us  lies  about  St.  Cuthbert,  we  will  disbelieve  his 
stories ;  but  we  will  not  call  Bede  a  liar,  even  though  he 
prefaces  his  life  with  a  declaration  that  he  has  set  down 
nothing  but  what  he  has  ascertained  on  the  clearest  evi- 
dence. We  are  driven  to  no  such  alternative  ;  our  canons 
of  criticism  are  different  from  Bede's,  and  so  are  our  no- 
tions of  probability.  Bede  would  expect  a  priori,  and 
would  therefore  consider  as  sufficiently  attested  by  a  con- 
sent of  popular  tradition,  what  the  oaths  of  living  witnesses 
would  fail  to  make  credible  to  a  modern  English  jury. 
We  will  call  Bede  a  liar  only  if  he  put  forward  his  picture 
of  St.  Cuthbert  as  a  picture  of  a  life  which  he  considered 
admirable  and  excellent,  as  one  after  which  he  was  en- 
deavoring to  model  his  own,  and  which  he  held  up  as  a 
pattern  of  imitation,  when  in  his  heart  he  did  not  consider 
it  admirable  at  all,  when  he  was  making  no  effort  at  the 
austerities  which  he  was  lauding.  The  histories  of  the 
saints  are  written  as  ideals  of  a  Christian  life  ;  they  have 
no  elaborate  and  beautiful  forms ;  single  and  straight- 
forward as  they  are,  —  if  they  are  not  this  they  are  noth- 
ing. For  fourteen  centuries  the  religious  mind  of  the 
Catholic  world  threw  them  out  as  its  form  of  hero-wor- 
ship, as  the  heroic  patterns  of  a  form  of  human  life  which 
each  Christian  within  his  own  limits  was  endeavoring  to 
realize.  The  first  martyrs  and  confessors  were  to  those 
poor  monks  what  the  first  Dorian  conquerors  were  in  the 
war  songs  of  Tyrtaeus,  what  Achilles  and  Ajax  and  Aga- 
memnon and  Diomed  were  wherever  Homer  was  sung 
or  read  j  or,  in  more  modern  times,  what  the  Knights  of 

29 


450  T7ie  Lives  of  the  Saints. 

the  Eound  Table  were  in  the  halls  of  the  Norman  castles. 
The  Catholic  mind  was  expressing  its  conception  of  the 
highest  human  excellence  ;  and  the  result  is  that  immense 
and  elaborate  hagiology.  As  with  the  battle  heroes,  too, 
the  inspiration  lies  in  the  universal  idea ;  the  varieties  of 
character  (with  here  and  there  an  exception)  are  slight 
and  unimportant ;  the  object  being  to  create  examples  for 
universal  human  imitation.  Lancelot  or  Tristram  were 
equally  true  to  the  spirit  of  chivalry ;  and  Patrick  on  the 
mountain,  or  Antony  in  the  desert,  are  equal  models  of 
patieni.  austerity.  The  knights  fight  with  giants,  enchant- 
ers, robbers,  unknightly  nobles,  or  furious  wild  beasts  ;  the 
Christians  fight  with  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil. 
The  knight  leaves  the  comforts  of  home  in  quest  of  ad- 
ventures, the  saint  in  quest  of  penance,  and  on  the  bare 
rocks  or  in  desolate  wildernesses  subdues  the  devil  in  his 
flesh  with  prayers  and  penances ;  and  so  alien  is  it  all  to 
the  whole  thought  and  system  of  the  modern  Christian, 
that  he  either  rejects  such  stories  altogether  as  monks' 
impostures,  or  receives  them  with  disdainful  wonder,  as 
one  more  shameful  form  of  superstition  with  which  human 
nature  has  insulted  Heaven  and  disgraced  itself. 

O 

Leaving,  however,  for  the  present,  the  meaning  of 
monastic  asceticism,  it  seems  necessary  to  insist  that  there 
really  was  such  a  thing ;  there  is  no  doubt  about  it.  If 
the  particular  actions  told  of  each  saint  are  not  literally 
true,  as  belonging  to  him,  abundance  of  men  did  for  many 
centuries  lead  the  sort  of  life  which  saints  are  said  to  have 
led.  We  have  got  a  notion  that  the  friars  were  a  snug, 
comfortable  set,  after  all ;  and  the  life  in  a  monastery 
pretty  much  like  that  in  a  modern  university,  where  the  old 
monks'  language  and  affectation  of  unworldliness  does 
somehow  contrive  to  coexist  with  as  large  a  mass  of  bodily 
enjoyment  as  man's  nature  can  well  appropriate.  Very 
likely  this  was  the  state  into  which  many  of  the  monasteries 
had  fallen  in  the  fifteenth  century.  It  was  a  symptom  of 


TJie  Lives  of  the  /Saints.  451 

a  very  rapid  disorder  which  had  set  in  among  them,  and 
which  promptly  terminated  in  dissolution.  But  long,  long 
ages  lay  behind  the  fifteenth  century,  in  which,  wisely  or 
foolishly,  these  old  monks  and  hermits  did  make  them- 
selves a  very  hard  life  of  it ;  and  the  legend  only  exceeded 
the  reality  in  being  a  very  slightly  idealized  portrait.  We 
are  not  speaking  of  the  miracles ;  that  is  a  wholly  different 
question.  When  men  knew  little  of  the  order  of  Nature, 
whatever  came  to  pass  without  an  obvious  cause  was  at 
once  set  down  to  influences  beyond  Nature  and  above 
it ;  and  so  long  as  there  were  witches  and  enchanters, 
strong  with  the  help  of  the  bad  powers,  of  course  the 
especial  servants  of  God  would  not  be  left  without  graces 
to  outmatch  and  overcome  the  devil.  And  there  were 
many  other  reasons  why  the  saints  should  work  miracles. 
They  had  done  so  under  the  old  dispensation,  and  there 
was  no  obvious  reason  why  Christians  should  be  worse 
off  than  Jews.  And  again,  although  it  be  true,  in  the 
modern  phrase,  which  is  beginning  to  savor  a  little  of  cant, 
that  the  highest  natural  is  the  highest  supernatural,  nev- 
ertheless natural  facts  permit  us  to  be  so  easily  familiar 
with  them,  that  they  have  an  air  of  commonness  ;  and 
when  we  have  a  vast  idea  to  express,  there  is  always  a 
disposition  to  the  extraordinary.  But  the  miracles  are  not 
the  chief  thing ;  nor  ever  were  they  so.  Men  did  not  be- 
come saints  by  working  miracles,  but  they  worked  miracles 
because  they  had  become  saints ;  and  the  instructiveness 
and  value  of  their  lives  lay  in  the  means  which  they  had 
used  to  make  themselves  what  they  were  ;  and  as  we  said, 
in  this  part  of  the  business  there  is  unquestionable  basis  of 
truth  —  scarcely  even  exaggeration.  We  have  document- 
ary evidence,  which  has  been  filtered  through  the  sharp 
ordeal  of  party  hatred,  of  the  way  in  which  some  men  (and 
those,  not  mere  ignorant  fanatics,  but  men  of  vast  mind 
and  vast  influence  in  their  days)  conducted  themselves, 
where  myth  has  no  room  to  enter.  We  know  something  of 


452  The  Lives  of  the  Saints. 

the  hair-shirt  of  Thomas  a  Becket ;  and  there  was  another 
poor  monk,  whose  asceticism  imagination  could  not  easily 
outrun  ;  he  who,  when  the  earth's  mighty  ones  were  banded 
together  to  crush  him  under  their  armed  heels,  spoke  but 
one  little  word,  and  it  fell  among  them  like  the  spear  of 
Cadmus  ;  the  strong  ones  turned  their  hands  against  each 
other,  and  the  armies  melted  away  ;  and  the  proudest  mon- 
arch of  the  earth  lay  at  that  monk's  threshold  three  winter 
nights  in  the  scanty  clothing  of  penance,  suing  miserably 
for  forgiveness.  Or  again,  to  take  a  fairer  figure.  There 
is  a  poem  extant,  the  genuineness  of  which,  we  believe,  has 
not  been  challenged,  composed  by  Columbia!!,  commonly 
called  St.  Columba.  He  was  a  hermit  in  Arran,  a  rocky 
island  in  the  Atlantic,  outside  GalwayBay;  from  which  he 
was  summoned,  we  do  not  know  how,  but  in  a  manner 
which  appeared  to  him  to  be  a  Divine  call,  to  go  away  and 
be  Bishop  of  lona.  The  poem  is  a  "  Farewell  to  Arran," 
which  he  wrote  on  leaving  it ;  and  he  lets  us  see  some- 
thing of  a  hermit's  life  there.  "  Farewell,"  he  begins  (we 
are  obliged  to  quote  from  memory),  "  a  long  farewell  to 
thee,  Arran  of  my  heart.  Paradise  is  with  thee  ;  the  gar- 
den of  God  witliin  the  sound  of  thy  bells.  The  angels 
love  Arran.  Each  day  an  angel  comes  there  to  join  in  its 
services."  And  then  he  goes  on  to  describe  his  "  dear 
cell,"  and  the  holy  happy  hours  which  he  had  spent  there, 
"  with  the  wind  whistling  through  the  loose  stones,  and 
the  sea-spray  hanging  on  his  hair."  Arran  is  no  better 
than  a  wild  rock.  It  is  strewed  over  with  the  ruins  which 
may  still  be  seen  of  the  old  hermitages ;  and  at  their  best 
they  could  have  been  but  such  places  as  sheep  would  hud- 
dle under  in  a  storm,  and  shiver  in  the  cold  and  wet  which 
would  pierce  through  the  chinks  of  the  walls. 

Or,  if  written  evidence  be  too  untrustworthy,  there  are 
silent  witnesses  which  cannot  lie,  that  tell  the  same  touch- 
ing story.  Whoever  loiters  among  the  ruins  of  a  mon- 
astery will  see,  commonly  leading  out  of  the  cloisterSi 


Tim  Lives  of  the  Saints.  453 

rows  of  cellars  half  under-ground,  low,  damp,  and  wretched- 
looking  ;  an  earthen  floor,  bearing  no  trace  of  pavement ; 
a  roof  from  which  the  mortar  and  the  damp  keep  up  (and 
always  must  have  kept  up)  a  perpetual  ooze  ;  for  a  window 
a  narrow  slip  in  the  wall,  through  which  the  cold  and  the 
wind  find  as  free  an  access  as  the  light.  Such  as  they  are, 
a  well-kept  dog  would  object  to  accept  a  night's  lodging  in 
them ;  and  if  they  had  been  prison  cells,  thousands  of  phi- 
lanthropic tongues  would  have  trumpeted  out  their  horrors. 
The  stranger  perhaps  supposes  that  they  were  the  very 
dungeons  of  which  he  has  heard  such  terrible  things.  He 
asks  his  guide,  and  his  guide  tells  him  they  were  the  monks' 
dormitories.  Yes  ;  there  on  that  wet  soil,  with  that  dripping 
roof  above  them,  was  the  self-chosen  home  of  those  poor 
men.  Through  winter  frost,  through  rain  and  storm,  through 
summer  sunshine,  generation  after  generation  of  them, 
there  they  lived  and  prayed,  and  at  last  lay  down  and  died. 
It  is  all  gone  now  —  gone  as  if  it  had  never  been  ;  and 
it  was  as  foolish  as,  if  the  attempt  had  succeeded,  it  would 
have  been  mischievous,  to  revive  a  devotional  interest  in 
the  Lives  of  the  Saints.  It  would  have  produced  but  one 
more  unreality  in  an  age  already  too  full  of  such.  No  one 
supposes  we  should  have  set  to  work  to  live  as  they  lived  ; 
that  any  man,  however  earnest  in  his  religion,  would  have 
gone  looking  for  earth  floors  and  wet  dungeons,  or  wild 
islands  to  live  in,  when  he  could  get  any  thing  better 
Either  we  are  wiser,  or  more  humane,  or  more  self-indul- 
gent ;  at  any  rate  we  are  something  which  divides  us  from 
mediaeval  Christianity  by  an  impassable  gulf,  which  this 
age  or  this  epoch  will  not  see  bridged  over.  Nevertheless, 
these  modern  hagiologists,  however  wrongly  they  went  to 
work  at  it,  had  detected,  and  were  endeavoring  to  fill,  a 
very  serious  blank  in  our-  educational  system ;  a  very 
serious  blank  indeed,  and  one  which,  somehow,  we  must 
contrive  to  get  filled  if  the  education  of  character  is  ever 
to  be  more  than  a  name  with  us.  To  try  and  teach  people 


454  The  Lives  of  the  Saints. 

how  to  live  without  giving  them  examples  in  which  our 
rules  are  illustrated,  is  like  teaching  them  to  draw  by  the 
rules  of  perspective,  and  of  light  and  shade,  without  designs 
in  which  to  study  the  effects ;  or  to  write  verse  by  the  laws 
of  rhyme  and  metre,  without  song  or  poem  in  which  rhyme 
and  metre  are  exhibited.  It  is  a  principle  which  we  have 
forgotten,  and  it  is  one  which  the  old  Catholics  did  not  for- 
get. We  do  not  mean  that  they  set  out  with  saying  to 
themselves,  "We  must  have  examples,  we  must  have 
ideals  ;  "  very  likely  they  never  thought  about  it  at  all ;  love 
for  their  holy  men,  and  a  thirst  to  know  about  them,  pro- 
duced the  histories  ;  and  love  unconsciously  working  gave 
them  the  best  for  which  they  could  have  wished.  The  boy 
at  school  at  the  monastery,  the  young  monk  disciplining 
himself  as  yet  with  difficulty  under  the  austerities  to  which 
he  had  devoted  himself,  the  old  one  halting  on  toward  the 
close  of  his  pilgrimage,  —  all  of  them  had  before  their 
eyes,  in  the  legend  of  the  patron  saint,  a  personal  realiza- 
tion of  all  they  were  trying  after ;  leading  them  on,  beckon- 
ing to  them,  and  pointing,  as  they  stumbled  among  their 
difficulties,  to  the  marks  which  his  own  footsteps  had  left, 
as  he  had  trod  that  hard-  path  before  them.  It  was  as  if 
the  Church  was  forever  saying  to  them: — "You  have 
doubts  and  fears,  and  trials  and  temptations,  outward  and 
inward  ;  you  have  sinned,  perhaps,  and  feel  the  burden  of 
your  sin.  Here  was  one  who,  like  you,  in  this  very  spot, 
under  the  same  sky,  treading  the  same  soil,  among  the 
same  hills  and  woods  and  rocks  and  rivers,  was  tried  like 
you,  tempted  like  you,  sinned  like  you  ;  but  here  he  prayed, 
and  persevered,  and  did  penance,  and  washed  out  his  sins  ; 
he  fought  the  fight,  he  vanquished  the  Evil  One,  he 
triumphed,  and  now  he  reigns  a  saint  with  Christ  in 
heaven.  The  same  ground  which  yields  you  your  food, 
once  supplied  him  ;  he  breathed,  and  lived,  and  felt,  and 
died  here  ;  and  now,  from  his  throne  in  the  sky,  he  is  still 
looking  lovingly  down  on  his  children,  making  intercession 


The  Lives  of  the  Saints. 

for  you  that  you  may  have  grace  to  follow  him,  that  by  and 
by  he  may  himself  offer  you  at  God's  throne  as  his  own." 
It  is  impossible  to  measure  the  influence  which  a  personal 
reality  of  this  kind  must  have  exercised  on  the  mind,  thus 
daily  and  hourly  impressed  upon  it  through  a  life ;  there  is 
nothing  vague  any  more,  no  abstract  excellences  to  strain 
after ;  all  is  distinct,  personal,  palpable.  It  is  no  dream. 
The  saint's  bones  are  under  the  altar ;  nay,  perhaps  his 
very  form  and  features  undissolved.  Under  some  late 
abbot  the  coffin  may  have  been  opened  and  the  body  seen 
without  mark  or  taint  of  decay.  Such  things  have  been, 
and  the  emaciation  of  a  saint  will  account  for  it  without  a 
miracle.  Daily  some  incident  of  his  story  is  read  aloud, 
or  spoken  of,  or  preached  upon.  In  quaint  beautiful  forms 
it  lives  in  light  in  the  long  chapel  windows;  and  in  the 
summer  matins  his  figure,  lighted  up  in  splendor,  gleams 
down  on  the  congregation  as  they  pray,  or  streams  in  mys- 
terious tints  along  the  pavement,  clad,  as  it  seems,  in  soft 
celestial  glory,  and  shining  as  he  shines  in  heaven.  Alas, 
alas  !  where  is  it  all  gone  ? 

"VVe  are  going  to  venture  a  few  thoughts  on  the  wide 
question,  what  possibly  may  have  been  the  meaning  of  so 
large  a  portion  of  the  human  race,  and  so  many  centuries 
of  Christianity,  having  been  surrendered  and  seemingly 
sacrificed  to  the  working  out  this  dreary  asceticism.  If 
right  once,  then  it  is  right  now ;  if  now  worthless,  then  it 
could  never  have  been  more  than  worthless  ;  and  the 
energies  which  spent  themselves  on  it  were  like  corn  sown 
upon  the  rock,  or  substance  given  for  that  which  is  not 
bread.  We  supposed  ourselves  challenged  recently  for  our 
facts.  Here  is  an  enormous  fact  which  there  is  no  evad- 
ing. It  is  not  to  be  slurred  over  with  indolent  generalities, 
with  unmeaning  talk  of  superstition,  of  the  twilight  of  the 
understanding,  of  barbarism,  and  of  nursery  credulity;  it 
is  matter  for  the  philosophy  of  history,  if  the  philosophy 
hap  vet  been  born  which  can  deal  with  it ;  one  of  the  solid, 


456  The  Lives  of  the  Saints. 

experienced  facts  in  the  story  of  mankind  which  mist  be 
accepted  and  considered  with  that  respectful  deference 
which  all  facts  claim  of  their  several  sciences,  and  which 
wrill  certainly  not  disclose  its  meaning  (supposing  it  to  have 
a  meaning)  except  to  reverence,  to  sympathy,  to  love.  We 
must  remember  that  the  men  who  wrote  these  stories,  and 
who  practiced  these  austerities,  were  the  same  men  who 
composed  our  liturgies,  who  built  our  churches  and  our 
cathedrals  —  and  the  Gothic  cathedral  is,  perhaps,  on  the 
whole,  the  most  magnificent  creation  which  the  mind  of 
man  has  as  yet  thrown  out  of  itself.  If  there  be  any  such 
thing  as  a  philosophy  of  history,  real  or  possible,  it  is  in 
virtue  of  there  being  certain  progressive  organizing  laws  in 
which  the  fretful  lives  of  each  of  us  are  gathered  into  and 
subordinated  in  some  larger  unity,  through  which  age  is 
linked  to  age,  as  we  move  forward,  with  an  hdrizon  expand- 
ing and  advancing.  And  if  this  is  true,  the  magnitude  of 
any  human  phenomenon  is  a  criterion  of  its  importance, 
and  definite  forms  of  thought  working  through  long  historic 
periods  imply  an  effect  of  one  of  these  vast  laws  —  imply  a 
distinct  step  in  human  progress.  Something  previously 
unrealized  is  being  lived  out,  and  rooted  into  the  heart  of 

O  ' 

mankind. 

Nature  never  half  does  her  work. .  She  goes  over  it,  and 
over  it,  to  make  assurance  sure,  and  makes  good  her  ground 
with  wearying  repetition.  A  single  section  of  a  short  paper 
is  but  a  small  space  to  enter  on  so  vast  an  enterprise ; 
nevertheless,  a  few  very  general  words  shall  be  ventured 
as  a  suggestion  of  what  this  monastic  or  saintly  spirit  may 
possibly  have  meant. 

First,  as  the  spirit  of  Christianity  is  antagonistic  to  the 
world,  whatever  form  the  spirit  of  the  world  assumes,  the 
ideals  of  Christianity  will  of  course  be  their  opposite  ;  as 
one  verges  into  one  extreme,  the  other  will  verge  into  the 
contrary.  In  those*  rough  times  the  law  was  the  sword  ; 
animal  might  of  arm,  and  the  strong  animal  heart  which 


the  Lives  of  the  Saints.  457 

guided  it,  were  the  excellences  which  the  world  rewarded ; 
and  monasticism,  therefore,  in  its  position  of  protest,  would 
be  the  destruction  and  abnegation  of  the  animal  nature. 
The  war  hero  in  the  battle  or  the  tourney-yard  might  be 
taken  as  the  apotheosis  of  the  fleshy  man ;  the  saint  in 
the  desert,  of  the  spiritual. 

But  this  interpretation  is  slight,  imperfect,  and  if  true  at 
all  only  partially  so.  The  animal  and  the  spiritual  are  not 
contradictories  ;  they  are  the  complements  in  the  perfect 
character  ;  and  in  the  Middle  Ages,  as  in  all  ages  of  genuine 
earnestness,  they  interfused  and  penetrated  each  other. 
There  were  warrior  saints  and  saintly  warriors  ;  and  those 
grand  old  figures  which  sleep  cross-legged  in  the  cathedral 
aisles  were  something  higher  than  only  one  more  form 
of  the  beast  of  prey.  Monasticism  represented  something 
more  positive  than  a  protest  against  the  world.  We  believe 
it  to  have  been  the  realization  of  the  infinite  loveliness 
and  beauty  of  personal  purity. 

In  the  earlier  civilization,  the  Greeks,  however  genuine 
their  reverence  for  the  gods,  do  not  seem  to  have  supposed 
any  part  of  their  duty  to  the  gods  to  consist  in  keeping 
their  bodies  untainted.  Exquisite  as  was  their  sense  of 
beauty,  of  beauty  of  mind  as  well  as  beauty  of  form,  with  all 
their  loftiness  and  their  nobleness,  with  their  ready  love  of 
moral  excellence  when  manifested,  as  fortitude,  or  devotion 
to  liberty  and  to  home,  they  had  little  or  no  idea  of  what  we 
mean  by  morality.  With  a  few  rare  exceptions,  pullution, 
too  detestable  to  be  even  named  among  ourselves,  was  of 
familiar  and  daily  occurrence  among  their  greatest  men  ; 
was  no  reproach  to  philosopher  or  to  statesman  ;  and  was 
not  supposed  to  be  incompatible,  and  was  not,  in  fact,  in- 
compatible, with  any  of  those  especial  excellences  which  we 
so  admire  in  the  Greek  character. 

Among  the  Romans  (that  is,  the  early  Romans  of  the 
republic),  there  was  a  sufficiently  austere  morality.  A 
public  officer  of  state,  whose  business  was  to  inquire  into 


458  The  Lives  of  the  Saints. 

the  private  lives  of  the  citizens,  and  to  punish  offenses 
against  morals,  is  a  phenomenon  which  we  have  seen  only 
once  on  this  planet.  There  was  never  a  nation  before,  and 
there  has  been  none  since,  with  sufficient  virtue  to  endure 
it.  But  the  Roman  morality  was  not  lovely  for  its  own 
sake,  nor  excellent  in  itself.  It  was  obedience  to  law,  prac- 
ticed and  valued,  loved  for  what  resulted  from  it,  for  the 
strength  and  rigid  endurance  which  it  gave,  but  not  loved 
for  itself.  The  Roman  nature  was  fierce,  rugged,  almost 
brutal ;  and  it  submitted  to  restraint  as  stern  as  itself,  as 
long  as  the  energy  of  the  old  spirit  endured.  But  as  soon 
as  that  energy  grew  slack  —  when  the  religion  was  no 
longer  believed,  and  taste,  as  it  was  called,  came  in,  and 
there  was  no  more  danger  to  face,  and  the  world  was  at 
their  feet,  all  was  swept  away  as  before  a  whirlwind  ;  there 
was  no  loveliness  in  virtue  to  make  it  desired ;  and  the 
Rome  of  the  Caesars  presents,  in  its  later  ages,  a  picture  of 
enormous  sensuality,  of  the  coarsest  .animal  desire,  with 
means  unlimited  to  gratify  it.  In  Latin  literature,  as  little 
as  in  the  Greek,  is  there  any  sense  of  the  beauty  of  purity. 
Moral  essays  on  temperance  we  may  find,  and  praise 
enough  of  the  wise  man  whose  passions  and  whose  appe- 
tites are  trained  into  obedience  to  reason.  But  this  is  no 
more  than  the  philosophy  of  the  old  Roman  life,  which  got 
itself  expressed  in  words  when  men  were  tired  of  the 
reality.  It  involves  no  sense  of  sin.  If  sin  could  be  in- 
dulged without  weakening  self-command,  or  without  hurt- 
ing other  people.  Roman  philosophy  would  have  nothing  to 
say  against  it. 

The  Christians  stepped  far  out  beyond  philosophy. 
Without  speculating  on  the  why,  they  felt  that  indulgence 
of  animal  passion  did,  in  fact,  pollute  them,  and  so  much 
the  more,  the  more  it  was  deliberate.  Philosophy,  gliding 
into  Manicheism,  divided  the  forces  of  the  universe,  giving 
the  spirit  to  God,  but  declaring  matter  to  be  eternally  and 
incurably  evil ;  and  looking  forward  to  the  time  when  the 


The  Lives  of  the  Saints.  459 

spirit  should  be  emancipated  from  the  body,  as  the  begin- 
ning of,  or  as  the  return  to,  its  proper  existence,  a  man 
like  Plotinus  took  no  especial  care  what  became  the  mean- 
while of  its  evil  tenement  of  flesh.  If  the  body  sinned,  sin 
was  its  element ;  it  could  not  do  other  than  sin  ;  purity  of 
conduct  could  not  make  the  body  clean,  and  no  amount  of 
bodily  indulgence  could  shed  a  taint  upon  the  spirit — a 
very  comfortable  doctrine,  and  one  which,  under  various 
disguises,  has  appeared  a  good  many  times  on  the  earth. 
But  Christianity,  shaking  all  this  off,  would  present  the 
body  to  God  as  a  pure  and  holy  sacrifice,  as  so  much  of  the 
material  world  conquered  from  the  appetites  and  lusts,  and 
from  the  devil  whose  abode  they  were.  This  was  the 
meaning  of  the  fastings  and  scourgings,  the  penances  and 
night-watchings ;  it  was  this  which  sent  St.  Anthony  to  the 
tombs  and  set  Simeon  on  his  pillar,  to  conquer  the  devil  in 
the  flesh,  and  keep  themselves,  if  possible,  undefiled  by  so 
much  as  one  corrupt  thought. 

And  they  may  have  been  absurd  and  extravagant. 
When  the  feeling  is  stronger  than  the  judgment,  men  are 
very  apt  to  be  extravagant.  If,  in  the  recoil  from  Mani- 
cheism,  they  conceived  that  a  body  of  a  saint  thus  purified 
had  contracted  supernatural  virtue  and  could  work  mira- 
cles, they  had  not  sufficiently  attended  to  the  facts,  and  so 
far  are  not  unexceptionable  witnesses  to  them.  Neverthe- 
less they  did  their  work,  and  in  virtue  of  it  we  are  raised 
to  a  higher  stage  —  we  are  lifted  forward  a  mighty  step 
which  we  can  never  again  retrace.  Personal  purity  is  not 
the  whole  for  which  we  have  to  care :  it  is  but  one  feature 
in  the  ideal  character  of  man.  The  monks  may  have 
thought  it  was  all,  or  more  nearly  all  than  it  is  ;  and  there- 
fore their  lives  may  seem  to  us  poor,  mean,  and  emascu- 
late. Yet  it  is  with  life  as  it  is  with  science  ;  generations 
of  men  have  given  themselves  exclusively  to  single 
branches,  which,  when  mastered,  form  but  a  little  section 
m  a  cosmic  philosophy  ;  and  in  life,  so  slow  is  progress,  it 


400  The  'Lives  of  the  Saints. 

may  take  a  thousand  years  to  make  good  a  single  step. 
Weary  and  tedious  enough  it  seems  when  we  cease  to 
speak  in  large  language,  and  remember  the  numbers  of 
individual  souls  who  have  been  at  work  at  the  process ; 
but  who  knows  whereabouts  we  are  in  the  duration  of  the 
race  ?  Is  humanity  crawling  out  of  the  cradle,  or  tottering 
into  the  grave  ?  Is  it  in  nursery,  in  school-room,  or  in 
opening  manhood  ?  "Who  knows  ?  It  is  enough  for  us  to 
be  sure  of  our  steps  when  we  have  taken  them,  and  thank- 
fully to  accept  what  has  been  done  for  us.  Henceforth  it 
is  impossible  for  us  to  give  our  unmixed  admiration  to  any 
character  which  moral  shadows  overhang.  Henceforth  we 

O 

require,  not  greatness  only,  but  goodness  ;  and  not  that 
goodness  only  which  begins  and  ends  in  conduct  correctly 
regulated,  but  that  love  of  goodness,  that  keen  pure  feeling 
for  it,  which  resides  in  a  conscience  as  sensitive  and  sus- 
ceptible as  woman's  modesty. 

So  much  for  what  seems  to  us  the  philosophy  of  this 
matter.  If  we  are  right,  it  is  no  more  than  a  first  furrow 
in  the  crust  of  a  soil  which  hitherto  the  historians  have 
been  contented  to  leave  in  its  barrenness.  If  they  are 
conscientious  enough  not  to  trifle  with  the  facts,  as  they 
look  back  on  them  from  the  luxurious  self-indulgence  of 
modern  Christianity,  they  either  revile  the  superstition  or 
pity  the  ignorance  which  made  such  large  mistakes  on  the 
nature  of  religion  - —  and,  loud  in  their  denunciations  of 
priestcraft  and  of  lying  wonders,  they  point  their  moral 
with  pictures  of  the  ambition  of  mediaeval  prelacy  or  the 
scandals  of  the  annals  of  the  papacy.  For  the  inner  life 
of  all  those  millions  of  immortal  souls  who  were  stniggling, 
with  such  good  or  bad  success  as  was  given  them,  to  carry 
Christ's  cross  along  their  journey  through  life,  they  set  it 
by,  pass  it  over,  dismiss  it  out  of  history,  with  some  poor 
commonplace  simper  of  sorrow  or  of  scorn.  It  will  not 
do.  Mankind  have  not  been  so  long  on  this  planet  alto- 
gether that  we  can  allow  so  large  a  chasm  to  be  scooped 
out  of  their  spiritual  existence. 


The  Live*  of  the  Saints.  461 

We  intended  to  leave  our  readers  with  something  lighter 
than  all  this  in  the  shape  of  literary  criticism,  and  a  few 
specimens  of  the  biographical  style ;  in  both  of  these  we 
must  now,  however,  be  necessarily  brief.  Whoever  is 
curious  to  study  the  lives  of  the  saints  in  their  originals, 
should  rather  go  anywhere  than  •  to  the  Bollandists,  and 
universally  never  read  a  late  life  when  he  can  command  an 
early  one ;  for  the  genius  in  them  is  in  the  ratio  of  their 
antiquity,  and,  like  river-water,  is  most  pure  nearest  to  the 
fountain.  We  are  lucky  in  possessing  several  specimens 
of  the  mode  of  their  growth  in  late  and  early  lives  of  the 
same  saints,  and  the  process  in  all  is  similar.  Out  of  the 
unnumbered  lives  of  St.  Bride,  three  are  left ;  out  of  the 
sixty-six  of  St.  Patrick,  there  are  eight ;  the  first  of  each 
belonging  to  the  sixth  century,  the  latest  to  the  thirteenth. 
The  earliest  in  each  instance  are  in  verse  ;  they  belong  to 
a  time  when  there  was  no  one  to  write  such  things,  and 
were  popular  in  form  and  popular  in  their  origin.  The 
flow  is  easy,  the  style  graceful  and  natural ;  but  the  step 
from  poetry  to  prose  is  substantial  as  well  as  formal ;  the 
imagination  is  ossified,  and  we  exchange  the  exuberance 
of  legendary  creativeness  for  the  dogmatic  record  of  fact 
without  reality,  and  fiction  without  grace.  The  marvelous 
in  the  poetical  lives  is  comparatively  slight ;  the  after-mira- 
cles being  composed  frequently  out  of  a  mistake  of  poets' 
metaphors  for  literal  truth.  There  is  often  real,  genial, 
human  beauty  in  the  old  verse.  The  first  two  stanzas,  for 
instance,  of  "  St.  Bride's  Hymn  "  are  of  high  merit,  as  may, 
perhaps,  be  imperfectly  seen  in  a  translation  :  — 

"  Bride  the  queen,  she  loved  not  the  world ; 
She  floated  on  the  waves  of  the  world 
As  the  sea-bird  floats  upon  the  billow. 

"  Such  sleep  she  slept  as  the  mother  sleeps 
In  the  far  land  of  her  captivity, 
Mourning  for  her  child  at  home." 

What  a  picture  is  there  of  the  strangeness  and  yearning 
of  the  poor  human  soul  in  this  earthly  pilgrimage  ! 


4G2  The  Lives  of  the  Saints. 

The  poetical  «  Life  of  St.  Patrick,"  too,  is  full  of  fiue, 
wild,  natural  imagery.  The  boy  is  described  as  a  shepherd 
on  the  hills  of  Down,  and  there  is  a  legend,  well  told,  of 
the  angel  Victor  coming  to  him,  and  leaving  a  gigantic 
footprint  on  a  rock  from  which  he  sprang  back  into 
heaven.  The  legend,  of  course,  rose  from  some  remark- 
able natural  feature  of  the  spot ;  as  it  is  first  told,  a  shad- 
owy unreality  hangs  over  it,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  is 
more  than  a  vision  of  the  boy ;  but  in  the  later  prose  all  is 
crystalline  ;  the  story  is  drawn  out,  with  a  barren  prolixity 
of  detail,  into  a  series  of  angelic  visitations.  And  again, 
when  Patrick  is  described,  as  the  after-apostle,  raising  the 
dead  Celts  to  life,  the  metaphor  cannot  be  left  in  its  natu- 
ral force,  and  we  have  a  long,  weary  list  of  literal  deaths 
and  literal  raisings.  So  in  manj  ways  the  freshness  and 
individuality  was  lost  with  time.  The  larger  saints  swal- 
lowed up  the  smaller  and  appropriated  their  exploits ; 
chasms  were  supplied  by  an  ever-ready  fancy  ;  and,  like 
the  stock  of  good  works  laid  up  for  general  use,  there  was 
a  stock  of  miracles  ever  ready  when  any  defect  was  to  be 
supplied.  So  it  was  that,  after  the  first  impulse,  the  pro- 
gressive life  of  a  saint  rolled  on  like  a  snowball  down  a 
mountain  side,  gathering  up  into  itself  whatever  lay  in  its 
path,  fact  or  legend,  appropriate  or  inappropriate  —  some- 
times real  jewels  of  genuine  old  tradition,  sometimes  the 
debris  of  the  old  creeds  and  legends  of  heathenism  ;  and 
on,  and  on,  till  at  length  it  reached  the  bottom,  and  was 
dashed  in  pieces  on  the  Reformation. 

One  more  illustration  shall  serve  as  evidence  of  what  the 
really  greatest,  most  vigorous  minds  in  the  twelfth  century 
could  accept  as  possible  or  probable,  which  they  could  re- 
late (on  what  evidence  we  do  not  know)  as  really  ascer- 
tained facts.  We  remember  something  of  St.  Anselm : 
both  as  a  statesman  and  as  a  theologian,  he  was  unques- 
tionably among  the  ablest  men  of  his  time  alive  in  Europe. 
Here  is  a  story  which  Anselm  tells  of  a  certain  Cornish  St. 


TJie  Lives  of  the  Saints.  463 

Kieran.  The  saint,  with  thirty  of  his  companions,  was 
preaching  within  the  frontiers  of  a  lawless  Pagan  prince  ; 
and,  disregarding  all  orders  to  be  quiet  or  to  leave  the  coun- 
try, continued  to  agitate,  to  threaten,  and  to  thunder  even 
in  the  ears  of  the  prince  himself.  Things  took  their  natu- 
ral course.  Disobedience  provoked  punishment.  A  guard 
of  soldiers  was  sent,  and  the  saint  and  his  little  band  were 
decapitated.  The  scene  of  the  execution  was  a  wood,  and 
the  heads  and  trunks  were  left  lying  there  for  the  wolves 
and  the  wild  birds. 

But  now  a  miracle,  such  as  was  once  heard  of  before  in  the 
Church  in  the  person  of  the  holy  Denis;  was  again  wrought  by 
Divine  Providence  to  preserve  the  bodies  of  these  saints  from  prof- 
anation. The  trunk  of  Kieran  rose  from  the  ground,  and  select- 
ing first  his  own  head,  and  carrying  it  to  a  stream,  and  there 
carefully  washing  it,  and  afterwards  performing  the  same  sacred 
office  for  each  of  his  companions,  giving  each  body  its  own  head, 
he  dug  graves  for  them  and  buried  them,  and  last  of  all  buried 
himself. 

It  is  even  so.  So  it  stands  written  in  a  life  claiming 
Ansel  m's  authorship ;  and  there  is  no  reason  why  the 
authorship  should  not  be  his.  Out  of  the  heart  come  the 
issues  of  evil  and  of  good,  and  not  out  of  the  intellect  or 
the  understanding.  Men  are  not  good  or  bad,  noble  or 
base — thank  God  for  it!  —  as  they  judge  well  or  ill  of 
the  probabilities  of  Nature,  but  as  they  love  God  and  hate 
the  devil.  And  yet  the  story  is  instructive.  We  have 
heard  grave  good  men  —  men  of  intellect  and  influence  — 
with  all  the  advantages  of  modern  science,  learning,  ex- 
perience, —  men  who  would  regard  Anselm  with  sad  and 
serious  pity,  —  yet  tell  us  stories,  as  having  fallen  within 
their  own  experience,  of  the  marvels  of  mesmerism,  to  the 
full  as  ridiculous  (if  any  thing  is  ridiculous)  as  this  of  the 
poor  decapitated  Kieran. 

Mutato  nomine,  de  te 
Tabula  nnrratur. 


464  The  Lives  of  the  Saints. 

We  see  our  natural  faces  in  the  glass  of  history,  and  turn 
away  and  straightway  forget  what  manner  of  men  we  are. 
The  superstition  of  science  scoffs  at  the  superstition  of 
faith. 


REPRESENTATIVE   MEN. 

1850. 


FROM  St.  Anselm  to  Mr.  Emerson,  from  the  "Acta 
Sanctorum "  to  the  "  Representative  Men ; "  so  far  in 
seven  centuries  we  have  travelled.  The  races  of  the  old 
Ideals  have  become  extinct  like  the  Preadamite  Saurians ; 
and  here  are  our  new  pattern  specimens  on  which  we  are 
to  look,  and  take  comfort  and  encouragement  to  ourselves. 

The  philosopher,  the  mystic,  the  poet,  the  skeptic,  the 
man  of  the  world,  the  writer  ;  these  are  the  present  moral 
categories,  the  summa  genera  of  human  greatness  as  Mr. 
Emerson  arranges  them.  From  every  point  of  view  an 
exceptionable  catalogue.  They  are  all  thinkers,  to  begin 
•with,  except  one  ;  and  thought  is  but  a  poor  business  com- 
pared to  action.  Saints  did  not  earn  canonization  by  the 
number  of  their  folios  ;  and  if  the  necessities  of  the  times 
are  now  driving  our  best  men  out  of  action  into  philosophy 
and  verse-making,  so  much  the  worse  for  them  and  so 
much  the  worse  for  the  world.  The  one  pattern  actor, 
"  the  man  of  the  world,"  is  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  not  in  the 
least  a  person,  as  we  are  most  of  us  at  present  feeling, 
whose  example  the  world  desires  to  see  followed.  Mr. 
Emerson  would  have  done  better  if  he  had  kept  to  his  own 
side  of  the  Atlantic.  He  is  paying  his  own  countrymen 
but  a  poor  compliment  by  coming  exclusively  to  Europe 
for  his  heroes ;  and  he  would  be  doing  us  in  Europe  more 
real  good  by  a  great  deal  if  he  would  tell  us  something  of 
the  backwoodsmen  in  Kentucky  and  Ohio.  However,  to 
30 


466  Representative  Men. 

let  that  pass  ;  it  is  not  our  business  here  to  quarrel  either 
with  him  or  his  book ;  and  the  book  stands  at  the  head  of 
our  article  rather  because  it  presents  a  very  noticeable  de- 
ficiency of  which  its  -writer  is  either  unaware  or  careless* 
These  six  predicables,  as  the  logician  would  call  them, 
what  are  they  ?  Are  they  ultimate  genera  refusing  to  be 
classified  further  ?  or  is  there  any  other  larger  type  of 
greatness  under  which  they  fall  ?  In  the  naturalist's  cata- 
logue, poet,  skeptic,  and  the  rest  will  all  be  classified  as 
men  —  man  being  an  intelligible  entity.  Has  Mr.  Emer- 
son any  similar  clear  idea  of  great  man  or  good  man  ?  If 
so,  where  is  he  ?  what  is  he  ?  It  is  desirable  that  we 
should  know.  Men  will  not  get  to  heaven  because  they 
lie  under  one  or  other  of  these  predicables.  What  is  that 
supreme  type  of  character  which  is  in  itself  good  or  great, 
unqualified  with  any  further  differential  Is  there  any 
such  ?  and  if  there  be,  where  is  the  representative  of  this  ? 
It  may  be  said  that  the  generic  man  exists  nowhere  in  an 
ideal  unity  —  that  if  considered  at  all,  he  must  be  ab- 
stracted from  the  various  sorts  of  men,  black  and  white, 
tame  or  savage.  So  if  we  would  know  what  a  great  man 
or  a  good  man  means,  we  must  look  to  some  specific  line 
in  which  he  is  good  and  abstract  our  general  idea.  And 
that  is  very  well,  provided  we  know  what  we  are  about ; 
provided  we  understand,  in  our  abstracting,  how  to  get  the 
essential  idea  distinctly  out  before  ourselves,  without  en- 
tangling ourselves  in  the  accidents.  Human  excellence, 
after  all  the  teaching  of  the  last  eighteen  hundred  years, 
ought  to  be  something  palpable  by  this  time.  It  is  the 
one  thing  which  we  are  all  taught  to  seek  and  to  aim  at 
forming  in  ourselves ;  and  if  representative  men  are  good 
for  any  thing  at  all,  it  can  only  be,  not  as  they  represent 
merely  curious  combinations  of  phenomena,  but  as  they 
illustrate  us  in  a  completely  realized  form,  what  we  are, 
every  single  one  of  us,  equally  interested  in  understanding. 
It  is  not  the  "  great  man  "  as  "  man  of  the  world  "  that  we 


Representative  Men.  467 

care  for,  but  the  "  man  of  the  world  "  as  a  "  great  man  "  — 
which  is  a  very  different  thing.  Having  to  live  in  this 
world,  how  to  live  greatly  here  is  the  question  for  us ;  not 
how,  being  great,  we  can  cast  our  greatness  in  a  worldly 
mould.  There  may  be  endless  successful  "  men  of  the 
world  "  who  are  mean  or  little  enough  all  the  while  ;  and 
the  Emersonian  attitude  will  confuse  success  Avith  great- 
ness, or  turn  our  ethics  into  a  chaos  of  absurdity.  So  it  is 
with  every  thing  which  man  undertakes  and  works  in. 
Life  has  grown  complicated ;  and  for  one  employment  in 
old  times  there  are  a  hundred  now.  But  it  is  not  they 
which  are  any  thing,  but  we.  We  are  the  end,  they  are 
but  the  means,  the  material  —  like  the  clay,  or  the  marble, 
or  the  bronze  in  which  the  sculptor  carves  his  statue.  The 
form  is  every  thing ;  and  what  is  the  form  ?  From  nursery 
to  pulpit  every  teacher  rings  on  the  one  note  —  be  good, 
be  noble,  be  men.  What  is  goodness  then  ?  and  what  is 
nobleness  ?  and  where  are  the  examples  ?  We  do  not  say 
that  there  are  none.  God  forbid  !  That  is  not  what  we 
are  meaning  at  all.  If  the  earth  had  ceased  to  bear  men 
pleasant  in  God's  sight,  it  would  have  passed  away  like  the 
cities  in  the  plain.  But  who  are  they  ?  which  are  they  ? 
how  are  we  to  know  them  ?  They  are  our  leaders  in  this 
life  campaign  of  ours.  If  we  could  see  them,  we  would 
follow  them,  and  save  ourselves  many  and  many  a  fall,  and 
many  an  enemy  whom  we  could  have  avoided,  if  we  had 
known  of  him.  It  cannot  be  that  the  thing  is  so  simple, 
when  names  of  highest  reputation  are  wrangled  over,  and 
such  poor  counterfeits  are  mobbed  with  applauding  follow- 
ers. In  art  and  science  we  can  detect  the  charlatan,  but 
in  life  we  do  not  recognize  him  so  readily  —  we  do  not  rec- 
ognize the  charlatan,  and  we  do  not  recognize  the  true  man. 
Rajah  Brooke  is  alternately  a  hero  or  a  pirate ;  and  fifty  of 
the  best  men  among  us  are  likely  to  have  fifty  opinions  on 
the  merits  of  Elizabeth  or  Cromwell. 

But  surely,  men  say,  the   thing   is   simple.     The  con?.- 


468  Representative  Men. 

mandments  are  simple.  It  is  not  that  people  do  not  know, 
but  that  they  will  not  act  up  to  what  they  know.  "We  hear 
a  great  deal  of  this  in  sermons,  and  elsewhere  ;  and  of 
course,  as  every  body's  experience  will  tell  him,  there  is  a 
great  deal  too  much  reason  why  we  should  hear  of  it.  But 
there  are  two  sorts  of  duty,  positive  and  negative  ;  what  we 
ought  to  do,  and  what  we  ought  not  to  do.  To  the  latter 
of  these,  conscience  is  pretty  much  awake ;  but  by  cun- 
ningly concentrating  its  attention  on  one  side  of  the  mat- 
ter, conscience  has  contrived  to  forget  altogether  that  any 
other  sort  exists  at  all.  "  Doing  wrong "  is  breaking  a 
commandment  which  forbids  us  to  do  some  particular 
thing.  That  is  all  the  notion  which  in  common  language 
is  attached  to  the  idea.  Do  not  kill,  steal,  lie,  swear,  com- 
mit adultery,  or  break  the  Lord's  Day  —  these  are  the 
commandments ;  very  simple,  doubtless,  and  easy  to  be 
known.  But,  after  all,  what  are  they  ?  They  are  no  more 
than  the  very  first  and  rudimental  conditions  of  goodness. 
Obedience  to  these  is  not  more  than  a  small  part  of  what 
is  required  of  us ;  it  is  no  more  than  the  foundation  on 
which  the  superstructure  of  character  is  to  be  raised.  To 
go  through  life,  and  plead  at  the  end  of  it  that  we  have  not 
broken  any  of  these  commandments,  is  but  what  the  un- 
profitable servant  did,  who  kept  his  talent  carefully  un- 
spent, and  yet  was  sent  to  outer  darkness  for  his  useless- 
ness.  Suppose  these  commandments  obeyed  —  what  then  ? 
It  is  but  a  small  portion  of  our  time  which,  we  will  hope,  is 
spent  in  resisting  temptation  to  break  them.  What  are 
we  to  do  with  the  rest  of  it  ?  Or  suppose  them  (and  this 
is  a  high  step  indeed)  resolved  into  love  of  God  and  love 
of  our  neighbor.  Suppose  we  know  that  it  is  our  duty  to 
love  our  neighbor  as  ourselves.  What  are  we  to  do,  then, 
for  our  neighbor,  besides  abstaining  from  doing  him  in- 
jury ?  The  saints  knew  very  well  what  they  were  to  do ; 
but  our  duties,  we  suppose,  lie  in  a  different  direction  ;  and 
it  does  not  appear  that  we  have  found  them.  "  We  have 


Representative  Men.  469 

duties  so  positive  to  our  neighbor,"  says  Bishop  Butler, 
"  that  if  we  give  more  of  our  time  and  of  our  attention  to 
ourselves  and  our  own  matters  than  is  our  just  due,  we  are 
taking  what  is  not  ours,  and  are  guilty  of  fraud."  What 
does  Bishop  Butler  mean  ?  It  is  easy  to  answer  gener- 
ally. In  detail,  it  is  not  only  difficult,  it  is  impossible  to 
answer  at  all.  The  modern  world  says,  —  "  Mind  your 
own  business,  and  leave  others  to  take  care  of  theirs ; " 
and  whoever  among  us  aspires  to  more  than  the  negative 
abstaining  from  wrong,  is  left  to  his  own  guidance.  There 
is  no  help  for  him,  no  instruction,  no  modern  ideal  which 
shall  be  to  him  what  the  heroes  were  to  the  young  Greek 
or  Roman,  or  the  martyrs  to  the  Middle  Age  Christian. 
There  is  neither  track  nor  footprint  in  the  course  which  he 
will  have  to  follow,  while,  as  in  the  old  fairy  tale,  the  hill- 
side which  he  is  climbing  is  strewed  with  black  stones 
mocking  at  him  with  their  thousand  voices.  We  have 
no  moral  criterion,  no  idea,  no  counsels  of  perfection  ;  and 
surely  this  is  the  reason  why  education  is  so  little  pros- 
perous with  us ;  because  the  only  education  worth  any 
thing  is  the  education  of  character,  and  we  cannot  educate 
a  character  unless  we  have  some  notion  of  what  we  would 
form.  Young  men,  as  we  know,  are  more  easily  led  than 
driven.  It  is  a  very  old  story  that  to  forbid  this  and  that 
(so  curious  and  contradictory  is  our  nature)  is  to  stimulate 
a  desire  to  do  it.  But  place  before  a  boy  a  figure  of  a 
noble  man  ;  let  the  circumstances  in  which  he  has  earned 
his  claim  to  be  called  noble  be  such  as  the  boy  himself 
sees  around  himself;  let  him  see  this  man  rising  over  his 
temptation,  and  following  life  victoriously  and  beautifully 
forward,  and,  depend  on  it,  you  will  kindle  his  heart  as  no 
threat  of  punishment  here  or  anywhere  will  kindle  it. 

People  complain  of  the  sameness  in  the  "  Lives  of  the 
Saints."  It  is  that  very  sameness  which  is  the  secret  of 
their  excellence.  There  is  a  sameness  in  the  heroes  of  ihe 
"  Iliad ; "  there  is  a  sameness  in  the  historical  heroes  of 


470  Representative  Men. 

Greece  and  Rome.  A  man  is  great  as  he  contends  best 
with  the  circumstances  of  his  age,  and  those  who  fight  best 
with  the  same  circumstances,  of  course  grow  like  each 
other.  And  so  with  our  own  age  —  if  we  really  could 
have  the  lives  of  our  best  men  written  for  us  (and  written 
well,  by  men  who  knew  what  to  look  for,  and  what  it  was 
on  which  they  should  insist),  they  would  be  just  as  like 
each  other  too,  and  would  for  that  reason  be  of  such  infi- 
nite usefulness.  They  would  not  be  like  the  old  Ideals. 
Times  are  changed ;  they  were  one  thing,  we  have  to  be 
another  —  their  enemies  are  not  ours.  There  is  a  moral 
metempsychosis  in  the  change  of  era,  and  probably  no  lin- 
eament of  form  or  feature  remains  identical ;  yet  surely 
not  because  less  is  demanded  of  us  —  not  less,  but  more  — 
more,  as  we  are  again  and  again  told  on  Sundays  from  the 
pulpits ;  if  the  preachers  would  but  tell  us  in  what  that 
"more"  consists.  The  loftiest  teaching  we  ever  hear  is 
that  we  are  to  work  in  the  spirit  of  love ;  but  we  are  still 
left  to  generalities,  while  action  divides  and  divides  into 
ever  smaller  details.  It  is  as  if  the  Church  said  to  the 
painter  or  to  the  musician  whom  she  was  training,  you 
must  work  in  the  spirit  of  love  and  in  the  spirit  of  truth ; 
and  then  adding,  that  the  Catholic  painting  or  the  Catho- 
lic music  was  what  he  was  not  to  imitate,  supposed  that 
she  had  sent  him  out  into  the  world  equipped  fully  for  his 
enterprise. 

And  what  comes  of  this  ?  Emersonianism  has  come, 
modem  hagiology  has  come,  and  Ainsworth  novels  and 
Bulwer  novels,  and  a  thousand  more  unclean  spirits.  We 
have  cast  out  the  Catholic  devil,  and  the  Puritan  has  swept 
the  house  and  garnished  it ;  but  as  yet  we  do  not  see  any 
symptoms  showing  of  a  healthy  incoming  tenant,  and  there 
may  be  worse  states  than  Catholicism.  If  we  wanted  proof 
of  the  utter  spiritual  disintegration  into  which  we  have 
fallen,  it  would  be  enough  that  we  have  no  biographies, 
We  do  not  mean  that  we  have  no  written  lives  of  our  fel- 


Representative  Men.  471 

low-creatures;  there  are  enough  and  to  spare.  But  not 
any  one  is  there  in  which  the  ideal  tendencies  of  this  age 
can  be  discerned  in  their  true  form ;  not  one,  or  hardly 
any  one,  which  we  could  place  in  a  young  man's  hands, 
with  such  warm  confidence  as  would  let  us  say  of  it,  — • 
"  Read  that ;  there  is  a  man  —  such  a  man  as  you  ought 
to  be ;  read  it,  meditate  on  it ;  see  what  he  was,  and  how 
he  made  himself  what  he  was,  and  try  and  be  yourself  like 
him."  This,  as  \ve  saw  lately,  is  what  Catholicism  did.  It 
had  its  one  broad  type  of  perfection,  which  in  countless 
thousands  of  instances  was  perpetually  reproducing  itself 
—  a  type  of  character  not  especially  belonging  to  any  one 
profession ;  it  was  a  type  to  which  priest  and  layman, 
knight  or  bishop,  king  or  peasant,  might  equally  aspire  : 
men  of  all  sorts  aspired  to  it,  and  men  of  all  sorts  attained 
to  it ;  and  as  fast  as  she  had  realized  them  (so  to  say),  the 
Church  took  them  in  her  arms,  and  held  them  up  before 
the  world  as  fresh  and  fresh  examples  of  victory  over  the 
devil.  This  is  what  that  Church  was  able  to  do,  and  I'.  Is 
what  we  cannot  do  ;  and  yet,  till  we  can  learn  to  do  it,  no 
education  which  we  can  offer  has  any  chance  of  prospering. 
Perfection  is  not  easy ;  it  is  of  all  things  most  difficult ; 
difficult  to  know  and  difficult  to  practice.  Rules  of  life 
will  not  do ;  even  if  our  analysis  of  life  in  all  its  possible 
forms  were  as  complete  as  it  is  in  fact  rudimentary,  they 
would  still  be  inefficient.  The  philosophy  of  the  thing 
might  be  understood,  but  the  practice  would  be  as  far  off 
as  ever.  In  life,  as  in  art,  and  as  in  mechanics,  the  only 
profitable  teaching  is  the  teaching  by  example.  Your 
mathematician,  or  your  man  of  science,  may  discourse  ex- 
cellently on  the  steam-engine,  yet  he  cannot  make  one ;  he 
cannot  make  a  bolt  or  a  screw.  The  master  workman  in 
the  engine-room  does  not  teach  his  apprentice  the  theory  of 
expansion,  or  of  atmospheric  pressure ;  he  guides  his  hand 
upon  the  turncock,  he  practices  his  eye  upon  the  index, 
and  he  leaves  the  science  to  follow  when  the  practice  has 


472  Representative  Men. 

become  mechanical.  So  it  is  with  every  thing  which  man 
learns  to  do ;  and  yet  for  the  art  of  arts,  the  trade  of 
trades,  for  life,  we  content  ourselves  with  teaching  our 
children  the  catechism  and  the  commandments  ;  we  preach 
them  sermons  on  the  good  of  being  good,  and  the  evil  of 
being  evil ;  in  our  higher  education  we  advance  to  the  the- 
ory of  habit  and  the  freedom  of  the  will ;  and  then,  when 
failure  follows  failure,  ipsa  experientia  reclamanle,  we  hug 
ourselves  with  a  complacent  self-satisfied  reflection  that  the 
fault  is  not  ours,  that  all  which  men  could  do  we  have 
done.  The  freedom  of  the  will !  —  as  if  a  blacksmith 
would  ever  teach  a  boy  to  make  a  horseshoe,  by  telling 
him  he  could  make  one  if  he  chose. 

In  setting  out  on  our  journey  through  life,  we  are  like 
strangers  set  to  find  their  way  across  a  difficult  and  entan- 
gled country.  It  is  not  enough  for  us  to  know  that  others 
have  set  out  as  we  set  out,  that  others  have  faced  the  lions 
in  the  path  and  overcome  them,  and  have  arrived  at  last  at 
the  journey's  end.  Such  a  knowledge  may  give  us  heart 
—  but  the  help  it  gives  is  nothing  beyond  teaching  us  that 
the  difficulties  are  not  insuperable.  It  is  the  track,  which 
these  others,  these  pioneers  of  godliness,  have  beaten  in, 
that  we  cry  to  have  shown  us ;  not  a  mythic  "  Pilgrim's 
Progress,"  but  a  real  path  trodden  in  by  real  men.  Here 
is  a  crag,  and  there  is  but  one  spot  where  it  can  be 
climbed  ;  here  is  a  morass  or  a  river,  and  there  is  a  bridge 
in  one  place,  and  a  ford  in  another.  There  are  robbers  in 
this  forest,  and  wild  beasts  in  that ;  the  tracks  cross  and 
recross,  and,  as  in  the  old  labyrinth,  only  one  will  bring  us 
right.  The  age  of  the  saints  has  passed;  they  are  no 
longer  any  service-  to  us  ;  we  must  walk  in  their  spirit,  but 
not  along  their  road;  and  in  this  sense  wre  say,  that  we 
have  no  pattern  great  men,  no  biographies,  no  history, 
which  are  of  real  service  to  us.  It  is  the  remarkable  char- 
acteristic of  the  present  time,  as  far  as  we  know  —  a  new 
phenomenon  since  history  began  to  be  written  ;  one  more 


Representative  Men.  473 

proof,  if  we  wanted  proof,  that  we  are  entering  on  another 
era.  In  our  present  efforts  at  educating,  we  are  like  work- 
men setting  about  to  make  a  machine  which  they  know  is 
to  be  composed  of  plates  and  joints,  and  wheels  and  screws 
and  springs :  — they  temper  their  springs,  and  smooth  their 
plates,  and  carve  out  carefully  their  wheels  and  screws,  but 
having  no  idea  of  the  machine  in  its  combination,  they 
either  fasten  them  together  at  random,  and  create  some 
monster  of  disjointed  undirected  force,  or  else  pile  the  fin- 
ished materials  into  a  heap  together,  and  trust  to  some 
organic  spirit  in  themselves  which  will  shape  them  into 
unity.  We  do  not  know  what  we  would  be  at.  Make  our 
children  into  men,  says  one  —  but  what  sort  of  men  ?  The 
Greeks  were  men,  so  were  the  Jews,  so  were  the  Komans, 
so  were  the  old  Saxons,  the  Normans,  the  Duke  of  Alva's 
Spaniards,  and  Cromwell's  Puritans.  These  were  all  men, 
and  strong  men  too ;  yet  all  different,  and  all  differently 
trained.  "  Into  Christian  men,"  say  others :  but  the  saints 
were  Christian  men ;  yet  the  modern  Englishmen  have 
been  offered  the  saints'  biographies,  and  have  with  sufficient 
clearness  expressed  their  opinion  of  them. 

Alas !  in  all  this  confusion,  only  those  keen-eyed  chil- 
dren of  this  world  find  their  profit ;  their  idea  does  not 
readily  forsake  them.  In  their  substantial  theory  of  life, 
the  business  of  man  in  it  is  to  get  on,  to  thrive,  to  prosper, 
to  have  riches  in  possession.  They  will  have  their  little 
ones  taught,  by  the  law  of  demand,  what  will  fetch  its  price 
in  the  market;  and  this  is  clear,  bold,  definite,  straight- 
forward—  and  therefore  it  is  strong,  and  works  its  way. 
It  works  and  will  prevail  for  a  time  ;  for  a  time  —  but  not 
forever,  unless  indeed  religion  be  all  a  dream,  and  our 
airy  notions  of  ourselves  a  vision  out  of  which  our  wise  age 
is  the  long-waited-for  awakening. 

It  would  be  a  weary  and  odious  business  to  follow  out 
all  the  causes  which  have  combined  to  bring  us  into  our 
present  state.  Many  of  them  lie  deep  down  in  the  roots 


474  Representative  Men. 

of  humanity,  and  many  belong  to  that  large  system  of 
moral  causation  which  works  through  vast  masses  of  man- 
kind —  which,  impressing  peculiar  and  necessary  features 
on  the  eras  as  they  succeed,  leaves  individuals  but  a  limited 
margin  within  which  they  may  determine  what  they  will 
be.  One  cause,  however,  may  be  mentioned,  which  lies 
near  the  surface,  and  which  for  many  reasons  it  may  be 
advantageous  to  consider.  At  first  thought  it  may  seem 
superficial  and  captious  ;  but  we  do  not  think  it  will  at  the 
second,  and  still  less  at  the  third. 

Protestantism,  and  even  Anglo-Protestantism,  has  not 
been  without  its  great  men.  In  their  first  fierce  struggle 
for  existence,  these  creeds  gave  birth  to  thousands  whose 
names  may  command  any  rank  in  history.  But  alone  of 
all  forms  of  religion,  past  or  present,  and  we  will  add  (as 
we  devoutly  hope),  to  come  (for  in  her  present  form,  at 
least,  the  Church  of  England  cannot  long  remain),  Protest- 
antism knows  not  what  to  do  with  her  own  offspring ;  she 
is  unable  to  give  them  open  and  honorable  recognition. 
Entangled  in  speculative  theories  of  human  depravity,  of 
the  worthlessness  of  the  best  which  the  best  men  can  do, 
Protestantism  is  unable  to  say  heartily  of  any  one,  "  Here 
is  a  good  man  to  be  loved  and  remembered  with  rever- 
ence." There  are  no  saints  in  the  English  Church.  The 
English  Church  does  not  pretend  to  saints.  Her  children 
may  live  purely,  holily,  and  beautifully,  but  her  gratitude 
for  them  must  be  silent ;  she  may  not  thank  God  for  them 
—  she  may  not  hold  them  up  before  her  congregation. 
They  may  or  they  may  not  have  been  really  good,  but  she 
may  not  commit  herself  to  attributing  a  substantial  value 
to  the  actions  of  a  nature  so  corrupt  as  that  of  man. 
Among  Protestants,  the  Church  of  England  is  the  worst, 
for  she  is  not  wholly  Protestant.  In  the  utterness  of  the 
self-abnegation  of  the  genuine  Protestant  there  is  some- 
thing approaching  the  heroic.  But  she,  ambitious  of  being 
Catholic  as  well  as  Protestant,  like  that  old  Church  of 


Representative  Men.  475 

evil  memory  which  would  be  neither  hot  nor  cold,  will 
neither  wholly  abandon  merit,  nor  wholly  claim  it ;  but 
halts  on  between  two  opinions,  claiming  and  disclaiming, 
saying  and  in  the  next  breath  again  unsaying.  The  Ox- 
ford student  being  asked  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Anglican 
Church  on  good  works,  knew  the  rocks  and  whirlpools 
among  which  an  unwary  answer  might  involve  him,  and 
steering  midway  between  Scylla  and  Charybdis,  replied, 
with  laudable  caution,  "  A  few  of  them  would  not  do  a  man 
any  harm."  It  is  scarcely  a  caricature  of  the  prudence  of 
the  Articles.  And  so  at  last  it  has  come  to  this  with  us. 
The  soldier  can  raise  a  column  to  his  successful  general ; 
the  halls  of  the  law  courts  are  hung  round  with  portraits 
of  the  ermined  sages ;  Newton  has  his  statue,  and  Harvey 
and  Watt,  in  the  academies  of  the  sciences ;  and  each 
young  aspirant  after  fame,  entering  for  the  first  time  upon 
the  calling  which  he  has  chosen,  sees  high  excellence 
highly  honored ;  sees  the  high  career,  and  sees  its  noble 
ending,  marked  out  each  step  of  it  in  golden  letters.  But 
the  Church's  aisles  are  desolate,  and  desolate  they  must 
remain.  There  is  no  statue  for  the  Christian.  The  empty 
niches  stare  out  like  hollow  eye-sockets  from  the  walls. 
Good  men  live  in  the  Church  and  die  in  her,  whose  story 
written  out  or  told  would  be  of  inestimable  benefit,  but  she 
may  not  write  it.  She  may  speak  of  goodness,  but  not  of 
the  good  man ;  as  she  may  speak  of  sin,  but  may  not  cen- 
sure the  sinner.  Her  position  is  critical;  the  Dissenters 
would  lay  hold  of  it.  She  may  not  do  it,  but  she  will  do 
what  she  can.  She  cannot  tolerate  an  image  indeed,  or  a 
picture  of  her  own  raising ;  she  has  no  praise  to  utter  at 
her  children's  graves,  when  their  lives  have  witnessed  to 
her  teaching.  But  if  others  will  bear  the  expense  and  will 
risk  the  sin,  she  will  offer  no  objection.  Pier  walls  are 
naked.  The  wealthy  ones  among  her  congregation  may 
adorn  them  as  they  please ;  the  splendor  of  a  dead  man's 
memorial  rhall  be,  not  as  his  virtues  were,  but  as  his  purse ; 


476  Representative  Men. 

and  his  epitaph  may  be  brilliant  according  as  there  are 
means  to  pay  for  it.  They  manage  things  better  at  the 
museums  and  the  institutes. 

Let  this  pass,  however,  as  the  worst  case.  There  are 
other  causes  at  work  besides  the  neglect  of  churches  ;  the 
neglect  itself  being  as  much  a  result  as  a  cause.  There  is 
a  common  dead  level  over  the  world,  to  which  churches 
and  teachers,  however  seemingly  opposite,  are  alike  con- 
demned. As  it  is  here  in  England,  so  it  is  with  the  Amer- 
ican Emerson.  The  fault  is  not  in  them,  but  in  the  age 
of  which  they  are  no  more  than  the  indicators.  We  are 
passing  out  of  old  forms  of  activity  into  others  new  and  on 
their  present  scale  untried ;  and  how  to  work  nobly  in 
them  is  the  one  problem  for  us  all.  Surius  will  not  profit 
us,  nor  the  '•  Mort  d' Arthur."  Our  calling  is  neither  to  the 
hermitage  nor  to  the  Eound  Table.  Our  work  lies  now  in 
those  peaceful  occupations  which,  in  ages  called  heroic, 
were  thought  unworthy  of  noble  souls.  In  those  it  was  the 
slave  who  tilled  the  ground,  and  wove  the  garments.  It 
was  the  ignoble  burgher  who  covered  the  sea  with  his 
ships,  and  raised  up  factories  and  workshops  ;  and  how  far 
such  occupations  influenced  the  character,  how  they  could 
be  made  to  minister  to  loftiness  of  heart,  and  high  and 
beautiful  life,  was  a  question  which  could  not  occur  while 
the  atmosphere  of  the  heroic  was  on  all  sides  believed  so 
alien  to  them.  Times  have  changed.  The  old  hero  wor- 
ship has  vanished  with  the  need  of  it ;  but  no  other  has 
risen  in  its  stead,  and  without  it  we  wander  in  the  dark. 
The  commonplaces  of  morality,  the  negative  command- 
ments, general  exhortations  to  goodness,  while  neither 
speaker  nor  hearer  can  tell  what  they  mean  by  goodness  — 
these  are  all  which  now  remain  to  us ;  and  thrown  into  a 
life  more  complicated  than  any  which  the  earth  has  yet  ex- 
perienced, we  are  left  to  wind  our  way  through  the  laby- 
rinth of  its  details  without  any  clew  except  our  own  in- 
stincts, our  own  knowledge,  our  own  hopes  and  desires. 


Representative  Men.  477 

We  complain  of  generalities ;  we  will  not  leave  ourselves 
exposed  to  the  same  charge.  We  will  mention  a  few  of 
the  thousand  instances  in  which  we  cry  for  guidance  and 
find  none ;  instances  on  which  those  who  undertake  to 
teach  us  ought  to  have  made  up  their  minds. 

On  the  surface  at  least  of  the  Prayer-book,  there  seems 
to  be  something  left  remaining  of  the  Catholic  penitential 
system.  Fasting  is  spoken  of  and  abstinence,  and  some 
form  or  other  of  self-inflicted  self-denial  is  necessarily 
meant.  This  thing  can  by  no  possibility  be  unimportant, 
an.d  we  may  well  smile  at  the  exclusive  claims  of  a  church 
to  the  cure  of  our  souls,  who  is  unable  to  say  what  she 
thinks  about  it.  Let  us  ask  her  living  interpreters  then, 
and  what  shall  we  get  for  an  answer  ?  Either  no  answer 
at  all,  or  contradictory  answers  ;  angrily,  violently,  passion- 
ately contradictory.  Among  the  many  voices,  what  is  a 
young  man  to  conclude  ?  He,  will  conclude  naturally  ac- 
cording to  his  inclination  ;  and  if  he  chooses  right,  it  will 
most  likely  be  on  a  wrong  motive. 

Again,  courage  is,  on  all  hands,  considered  as  an  essen- 
tial of  high  character.  Among  all  fine  people,  old  and 
modern,  wherever  we  are  able  to  get  an  insight  into  their 
training  system,  we  find  it  a  thing  particularly  attended  to. 
The  Greeks,  the  Romans,  the  old  Persians,  our  own  nation 
till  the  last  two  hundred  years,  whoever  of  mankind  have 
turned  out  good  for  any  thing  anywhere,  knew  very  well, 
that,  to  exhort  a  boy  to  be  brave  without  training  him  in  it, 
would  be  like  exhorting  a  young  colt  to  submit  to  the  bri- 
dle without  breaking  him  in.  Step  by  step,  as  he  could 
bear  it,  the  boy  was  introduced  to  danger,  till  his  pulse 
ceased  to  be  agitated,  and  he  became  familiarized  with  peril 
as  his  natural  element.  It  was  a  matter  of  carefully  con- 
sidered, thoroughly  recognized,  and  organized  education. 
But  courage  nowadays  is  not  a  paying  virtue.  Courage 
does  not  help  to  make  money,  and  so  we  have  ceased  to 
care  about  it ;  and  boys  are  left  to  educate  one  another  by 


478  Representative  Men. 

their  own  semi-brutal  instincts,  in  this,  which  is  perhaps 
the  most  important  of  all  features  in  the  human  character. 
Schools,  as  far  as  the  masters  are  concerned  with  them,  are 
places  for  teaching  Greek  and  Latin  —  that,  and  nothing 
more.  At  the  universities,  fox-hunting  is,  perhaps,  the 
only  discipline  of  the  kind  now  to  be  found,  and  fox-hunt- 
ing, by  forbidding  it  and  winking  at  it,  the  authorities  have 
contrived  to  place  on  as  demoralizing  a  footing  as  ingenu- 
ity could  devise.1 

To  pass  from  training  to  life.  A  boy  has  done  with 
school  and  college ;  he  has  become  a  man,  and  has  to 
choose  his  profession.  It  is  the  one  most  serious  step 
which  he  has  yet  taken.  In  most  cases,  there  is  no  recall- 
ing it.  He  believes  that  he  is  passing  through  life  to  eter- 
nity ;  that  his  chance  of  getting  to  heaven  depends  on 
what  use  he  makes  of  his  time  ;  he  prays  every  day  that  he 
may  be  delivered  from  temptation  ;  it  is  his  business  to 
see  that  he  does  not  throw  himself  into  it.  Xow,  every 
one  of  the  many  professions  has  a  peculiar  character  of  its 
own,  which,  with  rare  exceptions,  it  inflicts  on  those  who 
follow  it.  There  is  the  shopkeeper  type,  the  manufacturer 
type,  the  lawyer  type,  the  medical  type,  the  clerical  type, 
the  soldier's,  the  sailor's.  The  nature  of  a  man  is, 

"  Like  the  dyers  hand, 
Subdued  to  what  it  works  in;  " 

and  we  can  distinguish  with  ease,  on  the  slightest  inter- 
course, to  what  class  a  grown  person  belongs.  It  is  to  be 
seen  in  his  look,  in  his  words,  in  his  tone  of  thought,  his 
voice,  gesture,  even  in  his  handwriting ;  and  in  every  thing 
which  he  does.  Every  human  employment  has  its  espe- 
cial moral  characteristic,  its  peculiar  temptations,  its  pecul- 
iar influences  —  of  a  subtle  and  not  easily  analyzed  kind, 
and  only  to  be  seen  in  their  effects.  Here,  therefore  — 
here,  if  anywhere,  we  want  Mr.  Emerson  with  his  represent- 
atives, or  the  Church  with  her  advice  and  warning.  But, 

i  Written  1850. 


Representative  Men.  479 

in  fact,  what  attempt  do  we  see  to  understand  any  of  this, 
or  even  to  acknowledge  it ;  to  master  the  moral  side  of  the 
professions  ;  to  teach  young  men  entering  them  what  they 
are  to  expect,  what  to  avoid,  or  what  to  seek  ?  Where  are 
the  highest  types  —  the  pattern  lawyer,  and  shopkeeper, 
and  merchant  ?  Are  they  all  equally  favorahle  to  excel- 
lence of  character  ?  Do  they  offer  equal  opportunities  ? 
Which  best  suits  this  disposition,  and  which  suits  that? 
Alas !  character  is  little  thought  of  in  the  choice.  It  is 
rather,  which  shall  I  best  succeed  in  ?  Where  shall  I 
make  most  money  ?  Suppose  an  anxious  boy  to  go  for 
counsel  to  his  spiritual  mother  ;  to  go  to  her,  and  ask  her 
to  guide  him.  Shall  I  be  a  soldier  ?  he  says.  What  will 
she  tell  him  ?  This  and  no  more  —  You  may,  without  sin. 
Shall  I  be  a  lawyer,  merchant,  manufacturer,  tradesman, 
engineer  ?  Still  the  same  answer.  But  which  is  best  ? 
he  demands.  We  do  not  know :  we  do  not  know.  There 
is  no  guilt  in  either  ;  you  may  take  which  you  please,  pro- 
vided you  go  to  church  regularly,  and  are  honest  and  good. 
If  he  is  foolish  enough  to  persist  further,  and  ask  in  what 
honesty  and  goodness  consist  in  his  especial  department 
(whichever  he  selects),  he  will  receive  the  same  answer ;  in 
other  words,  he  will  be  told  to  give  every  man  his  due,  and 
be  left  to  find  out  for  himself  in  what  "  his  due  "  consists. 
It  is  like  an  artist  telling  his  pupil  to  put  the  lights  and 
shadows  in  their  due  places,  and  leaving  it  to  the  pupil's 
ingenuity  to  interpret  such  instructive  directions. 

One  more  instance  of  an  obviously  practical  kind. 
Masters,  few  people  will  now  deny,  owe  certain  duties  to 
their  workmen  beyond  payment  at  the  competition  price 
for  their  labor,  and  the  workmen  owe  something  to  their 
masters  beyond  making  their  own  best  bargain.  Courtesy, 
on  the  one  side,  and  respect  on  the  other,  are  at  least  due ; 
and  wherever  human  beings  are  brought  in  contact,  a  num- 
ber of  reciprocal  obligations  at  once  necessarily  arise  out 
of  the  conditions  of  their  position.  It  is  this  question 


480  Representative  Men. 

which  at  the  present  moment  is  convulsing  an  entire  branch 
of  English  trade.  It  is  this  question  which  has  shaken  the 
Continent  like  an  earthquake,  and  yet  it  is  one  which,  the 
more  it  is  thought  about,  the  more  clearly  seems  to  refuse 
to  admit  of  being  dealt  with  by  legislation.  It  is  a  question 
for  the  Gospel  and  not  for  the  law.  The  duties  are  of 
the  kind  which  it  is  the  business,  not  of  the  State,  but 
of  the  Church,  to  look  to.  Why  is  the  Church  silent? 
There  are  duties ;  let  her  examine  them,  sift  them,  prove 
them,  and  then  point  them  out.  Why  not  —  why  not  ? 
Alas  !  she  cannot,  she  dare  not  give  offense,  and  there- 
fore must  find  none.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  we  have  a 
rough  trial  to  pass  through,  before  we  find  our  wray  and 
understand  our  obligations.  Yet  far  off  we  seem  to  see  a 
time  when  the  lives,  the  actions  of  the  really  great,  great 
good  masters,  great  good  landlords,  great  good  working 
men,  will  be  laid  out  once  more  before  their  several  orders, 
laid  out  in  the  name  of  God,  as  once  the  saints'  lives  were ; 
and  the  same  sounds  shall  be  heard  in  factory  and  in 
counting-house  as  once  sounded  through  abbey,  chapel, 
and  cathedral  aisle,  —  "  Look  at  these  men  ;  bless  God  for 
them,  and  follow  them." 

And  let  no  one  fear  that,  if  such  happy  time  were  come, 
it  would  result  in  a  tame  and  weary  sameness ;  that  the 
beautiful  variety  of  individual  form  would  be  lost,  drilled 
away  in  regimental  uniformity.  Even  if  it  were  so,  it  need 
not  be  any  the  worse  for  us  ;  we  are  not  told  to  develop 
our  individualities,  we  are  told  to  bear  fruit.  The  poor 
vagabond,  with  all  his  individualities  about  him,  if  by  luck 
he  falls  into  the  hands  of  the  recruiting  sergeant,  finds 
himself,  a  year  later,  with  his  red  coat  and  his  twelve 
months'  training,  not  a  little  the  better  for  the  loss  of  them. 
But  such  schooling  as  we  have  been  speaking  of  will  drill 
out  only  such  individualities  as  are  of  the  unworthy  kind, 
and  will  throw  the  strength  of  the  nature  into  the  develop- 
ment of  the  healthiest  features  in  it.  Far  more,  as  things 


Representative  Men.  481 

now  are,  we  see  men  sinking  into  sameness  —  an  inorganic, 
unwholesome  sameness,  in  which  the  higher  nature  is  sub- 
dued, and  the  man  is  sacrificed  to  the  profession.  The 
circumstances  of  his  life  are  his  world ;  and  he  sinks  under 
them,  he  does  not  conquer  them.  If  he  has  to  choose  be- 
tween the  two,  God's  uniform  is  better  than  the  world's. 
The  first  gives  him  freedom ;  the  second  takes  it  from  him. 
Only  here,  as  in  every  thing,  we  must  understand  the  nature 
of  the  element  in  which  we  work  ;  understand  it ;  under- 
stand the  laws  of  it.  Throw  off  the  lower  laws ;  the  selfish, 
debasing  influences  of  the  profession ;  obey  the  higher  ; 
follow  love,  truthfulness,  manliness  ;  follow  these  first,  and 
make  the  profession  serve  them ;  and  that  is  freedom  ; 
there  is  none  else  possible  for  man. 

"  Das  Gesetz  soil  nur  uns  Freiheit  geben;  " 

and  whatever  individuality  is  lost  in  the  process,  we  may 
feel  assured  that  the  devil  has  too  much  to  do  with,  to 
make  us  care  to  be  rid  of  it. 

But  how  to  arrive  at  this  ?  so  easy  as  it  is  to  suggest  on 
paper,  so  easy  to  foretell  in  words.  Raise  the  level  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  we  might  say  ;  insist  on  a  higher  standard  ;  in 
the  economist's  language,  increase  the  demand  for  good- 
ness, and  the  supply  will  follow ;  or,  at  any  rate,  men  will 
do  their  best.  Until  we  require  more  of  one  another,  more 
will  not  be  provided.  But  this  is  but  to  restate  the  prob- 
lem in  other  words.  How  are  we  to  touch  the  heart ;  how 
to  awaken  the  desire  ?  "We  believe  that  the  good  man,  the 
great  man,  whatever  he  be,  prince  or  peasant,  is  really 
lovely  ;  that  really  and  truly,  if  we  can  only  see  him,  he 
more  than  any  thing  will  move  us ;  and  at  least,  we  have  a 
right  to  demand  that  the  artificial  hinderances  which  pre- 
vent our  lifting  him  above  the  crowd,  shall  be  swept  away. 
He  in  his  beautiful  life  is  a  thousand  times  more  God's 
witness  than  any  preacher  in  a  pulpit,  and  his  light  must 
not  be  concealed  any  more.  As  we  said,  what  lies  in  the 
31 


482  Representative  Men. 

way  of  our  sacred  recognition  of  great  men  is  more  than 
any  thing  else  the  Protestant  doctrine  of  good  works.  We 
do  not  forget  what  it  meant  when  the  world  first  heard  of 
it.  It  was  a  cry  from  the  very  sanctuary  of  the  soul,  fling- 
ing off  and  execrating  the  accursed  theory  of  merits,  the 
sickening  parade  of  redundant  saintly  virtues,  which  the 
Roman  Church  had  converted  into  stock,  and  dispensed 
for  the  benefit  of  the  believers.  This  is  not  the  place  to 
pour  out  nausea  on  so  poor,  yet  so  detestable  a  farce.  But 
it  seems  with  all  human  matters,  that  as  soon  as  spiritual 
truths  are  petrified  into  doctrines,  it  is  another  name  for 
their  death.  They  die,  corrupt,  and  breed  a  pestilence. 
The  doctrine  of  good  works  was  hurled  away  by  an  instinct 
of  generous  feeling,  and  this  feeling  itself  has  again  become 
dead,  and  a  fresh  disease  has  followed  upon  it  Nobody 
(or,  at  least,  nobody  good  for  any  thing)  will  lay  a  claim  to 
merit  for  this  or  that  good  action  which  he  may  have  done. 
Exactly  in  proportion  as  a  man  is  really  good,  will  be  the 
eagerness  with  which  he  will  refuse  all  credit  for  it;  he 
will  cry  out,  with  all  his  soul,  "  Not  unto  us  —  not  unto 
us." 

And  yet,  practically,  we  all  know  and  feel  that  between 
man  and  man  there  is  an  infinite  moral  difference  ;  one  is 
good,  one  is  bad,  another  hovers  between  the  two;  the 
whole  of  our  conduct  to  each  other  is  necessarily  governed 
by  a  recognition  of  this  fact,  just  as  it  is  in  the  analogous 
question  of  the  will.  Ultimately,  we  are  nothing  of  our- 
selves ;  we  know  that  we  are  but  what  God  has  given  us 
grace  to  be  —  we  did  not  make  ourselves  —  we  do  not  keep 
ourselves  here  —  we  are  but  what,  in  the  eternal  order  of 
Providence,  we  were  designed  to  be  —  exactly  that  and 
nothing  else ;  and  yet  we  treat  each  other  as  responsible ; 
we  cannot  help  it.  The  most  rigid  Calvinist  cannot  elimi- 
nate his  instincts ;  his  loves  and  hatreds  seem  rather  to 
deepen  in  intensity  of  coloring  as,  logically,  his  creed  should 
lead  him  to  conquer  them  as  foolish.  It  is  useless,  it  is  im« 


Representative  Men.  483 

possible,  to  bring  down  these  celestial  mysteries  upon  our 
earth,  to  try  to- see  our  way  by  them,  or  determine  our 
feelings  by  them  ;  men  are  good,  men  are  bad,  relatively  to 
us  and  to  our  understandings  if  you  will,  but  still  really, 
and  so  they  must  be  treated. 

There  is  no  more  mischievous  falsehood  than  to  persist 
in  railing  at  man's  nature,  as  if  it  were  all  vile  together,  as 
if  the  best  and  the  worst  which  comes  of  it  were  in  God's 
sight  equally  without  worth.  These  denunciations  tend  too 
fatally  to  realize  themselves.  Tell  a  man  that  no  good 
which  he  can  do  is  of  any  value,  and  depend  upon  it  he 
will  take  you  at  your  word  —  most  especially  will  the 
wealthy,  comfortable,  luxurious  man,  just  the  man  who  has 
most  means  to  do  good,  and  whom  of  all  things  it  is  most 
necessary  to  stimulate  to  it.  Surely  we  should  not  be 
afraid.  The  instincts  which  God  has  placed  in  our  hearts 
are  too  mighty  for  us  to  be  able  to  extinguish  them  with 
doctrinal  sophistry.  We  love  the  good  man,  we  praise 
him,  we  admire  him  —  we  cannot  help  it ;  and  surely 
it  is  mere  cowardice  to  shrink  from  recognizing  it  openly 
—  thankfully,  divinely  recognizing  it.  If  true  at  all,  there 
is  no  truth  in  heaven  or  earth  of  deeper  practical  impor- 
tance to  us ;  and  Protestantism  must  have  lapsed  from 
its  once  generous  spirit,  if  it  persists  in  imposing  a  dogma 
of  its  own  upon  our  hearts,  the  touch  of  which  is  fatal  as 
the  touch  of  a  torpedo  to  any  high  or  noble  endeavors  after 
excellence. 

"  Drive  out  Nature  with  a  fork,  she  ever  comes  running 
back ; "  and  while  we  leave  out  of  consideration  the  re- 
ality, we  are  filling  the  chasm  with  inventions  of  our  own. 
The  only  novels  which  are  popular  among  us  are  those 
which  picture  the  successful  battles  of  modern  men  and 
women  with  modern  life,  which  are  imperfect  shadows  of 
those  real  battles  which  every  reader  has  seen  in  some  form 
or  other,  or  has  longed  to  see  in  his  own  small  sphere.  It 


484  Representative  Men. 

shows  where  the  craving  lies  if  we  had  but  the  courage  to 
meet  it ;  why  need  we  fall  back  on  imagination  to  create 
what  God  has  created  ready  for  us  ?  In  every  department 
of  human  life,  in  the  more  and  the  less,  there  is  always  one 
man  who  is  the  best,  and  one  type  of  man  which  is  the 
best,  living  and  working  his  silent  way  to  heaven  in  the 
very  middle  of  us.  Let  us  find  this  type  then  —  let  us 
see  what  it  is  which  makes  such  men  the  best,  and  raise  up 
their  excellences  into  an  acknowledged  and  open  standard, 
of  which  they  themselves  shall  be  the  living  witnesses.  Is 
there  a  landlord  who  is  spending  his  money,  not  on  pin- 
eries and  hot-houses,  but  on  schools,  and  wash-houses,  and 
drains ;  who  is  less  intent  on  the  magnificence  of  his  own 
grand  house,  than  in  providing  cottages  for  his  people . 
where  decency  is  possible  ;  then  let  us  not  pass  him  by 
with  a  torpid  wonder  or  a  vanishing  emotion  of  pleasure  — 
rather  let  us  seize  him  and  raise  him  up  upon  a  pinnacle, 
that  other  landlords  may  gaze  upon  him,  if,  perhaps,  their 
hearts  may  prick  them  ;  and  the  world  shall  learn  from 
what  one  man  has  done  what  they  have  a  right  'to  require 
that  others  shall  do. 

So  it  might  be  through  the  thousand  channels  of  .life. 
It  should  not  be  so  difficult ;  the  machinery  is  ready,  both 
to  find  your  men  and  to  use  them.  In  theory,  at  least, 
every  parish  has  its  pastor,  and  the  state  of  every  soul  is 
or  ought  to  be  known.  We  know  not  what  turn  things 
may  take,  or  what  silent  changes  are  rushing  on  below 
us.  Even  while  the  present  organization  remains  —  but, 
alas !  no ;  it  is  no  use  to  urge  a  Church  bound  hand  and 
foot  in  State  shackles  to  stretch  its  limbs  in  any  wholesome 
activity.  If  the  teachers  of  the  people  really  were  the 
wisest  and  best  and  noblest  men  among  us,  this  and  a 
thousand  other  blessed  things  would  follow  from  it ;  till 
then  let  us  be  content  to  work  and  pray,  and  lay  our  hand 
to  the  wheel  wherever  we  can  find  a  spoke  to  grasp.  Cor- 


Representative  Men.  485 

ruptio  optimi  est  pessima  ;  the  national  Church  as  it  ought 
to  be  is  the  soul  and  conscience  of  the  body  politic,  but  a 
man  whose  body  has  the  direction  of  his  conscience  we 
do  not  commonly  consider  in  the  most  hopeful  moral  con- 
dition. 


REYNARD   THE  FOX.1 


LORD  MACAULAY,  in  his  Essay  on  Machiavelli,  pro- 
pounds a  singular  theory.  Declining  the  various  solutions 
which  have  been  offered  to  explain  how  a  man  supposed 
to  be  so  great  could  have  lent  his  genius  to  the  doctrine 
of  "  The  Prince,"  he  has  advanced  a  hypothesis  of  his 
own,  which  may  or  may  not  be  true,  as  an  interpretation  of 
Machiavelli's  character,  but  which,  as  an  exposition  of  a 
universal  ethical  theory,  is  as  questionable  as  what  it 
is  brought  forward  to  explain.  TVe  will  not  show  Lord 
Macaulay  the  disrespect  of  supposing  that  he  has  attempted 
an  elaborate  piece  of  irony.  It  is  possible  that  he  may 
have  been  exercising  his  genius  with  a  paradox,  but  the 
subject  is  not  of  the  sort  in  which  we  can  patiently  permit 
such  exercises.  It  is  hard  work  with  all  of  us  to  keep  our- 
selves straight,  even  when  we  see  the  road  with  all  plain- 
ness as  it  lies  out  before  us ;  and  clever  men  must  be  good 
enough  to  find  something  else  to  amuse  themselves  with, 
instead  of  dusting  our  eyes  with  sophistry. 

According  to  this  conception  of  human  nature,  the  base- 
nesses and  the  excellences  of  mankind  are  no  more  than 
accidents  of  circumstance,  the  results  of  national  feeling 
and  national  capabilities  ;  and  cunning  and  treachery,  and 
lying,  and  such  other  "  natural  defenses  of  the  weak  against 
the  strong,"  are  in  themselves  neither  good  nor  bad,  except 
as  thinking  makes  them  so.  They  are  the  virtues  of  a 

l  Fraser's  Mar/azinc,  1852. 


Reynard  the  Fox.  487 

weak  people,  and  they  will  be  as  much  admired,  and  are  as 
justly  admirable ;  they  are  to  the  full  as  compatible  with 
the  highest  graces  and  most  lofty  features  of  the  heart  and 
intellect  as  any  of  those  opposite  so-called  heroisms  which 
we  are  generally  so  unthinking  as  to  allow  to  monopolize 
the  name.  Cunning  is  the  only  resource  of  the  feeble  ;  and 
why  may  we  not  feel  for  victorious  cunning  as  strong  a 
sympathy  as  for  the  bold,  downright,  open  bearing  of  the 
strong  ?  That  there  may  be  no  mistake  in  the  essayist's 
meaning,  that  he  may  drive  the  nail  home  into  the  English 
understanding,  he  takes  an  illustration  which  shall  be 
familiar  to  all  of  us  in  the  characters  of  lago  and  Othello. 
To  our  Northern  thought,  the  free  and  noble  nature  of  the 
Moor  is  wrecked  through  a  single  infirmity,  by  a  fiend  in 
the  human  form.  To  one  of  Machiavelli's  Italians,  lago's 
keen-edged  intellect  would  have  appeared  as  admirable  as 
Othello's  daring  appears  to  us,  and  Othello  himself  little 
better  than  a  fool  and  a  savage.  It  is  but  a  change  of 
scene,  of  climate,  of  the  animal  qualities  of  the  frame,  and 
evil  has  become  good,  and  good  has  become  evil.  Now, 
our  displeasure  with  Lord  Macaulay  is,  not  that  he  has 
advanced  a  novel  and  mischievous  theory :  it  was  elabo- 
rated long  ago  in  the  finely  tempered  dialectics  of  the 
schools  of  Rhetoric  at  Athens  ;  and  so  long  as  such  a 
phenomenon  as  a  cultivated  rogue  remains  possible  among 
mankind,  it  will  reappear  in  all  languages  and  under  any 
number  of  philosophical  disguises.  Seldom  or  never,  how- 
ever, has  it  appeared  with  so  little  attempt  at  disguise.  It 
has  been  left  for  questionable  poets  and  novelists  to  idealize 
the  rascal  genus ;  philosophers  have  escaped  into  the  am- 
biguities of  general  propositions,  and  we  do  not  remember 
elsewhere  to  have  met  with  a  serious  ethical  thinker  de- 
liberately laying  two  whole  organic  characters,  with  their 
vices  and  virtues  in  full  life  and  bloom,  side  by  side,  asking 
himself  which  is  best,  and  answering  gravely  that  it  is  a 
matter  of  taste. 


488  Reynard  the  Fox. 

Lord  Macaulay  has  been  bolder  than  his  predecessors  ; 
he  has  shrank  from  no  conclusion,  and  has  looked  directly 
into  the  very  heart  of  the  matter  ;  he  has  struck,  as  we 
believe,  the  very  lowest  stone  of  our  ethical  convictions, 
and  declared  that  the  foundation  quakes  under  it. 

For,  ultimately,  how  do  we  know  that  right  is  right,  and 
wrong  is  wrong  ?  People  in  general  accept  it  on  authority ; 
but  authority  itself  must  repose  on  some  ulterior  basis  ;  and 
what  is  that  ?  Are  we  to  say  that  in  morals  there  is  a  sys- 
tem of  primary  axioms,  out  of  which  we  develop  our  con- 
clusions, and  apply  them,  as  they  are  needed,  to  life  ?  It 
does  not  appear  so.  The  analogy  of  morals  is  rather  with 
art  than  with  geometry.  The  grace  of  Heaven  gives  us 
good  men,  and  gives  us  beautiful  creations ;  and  we,  per- 
ceiving by  the  instincts  within  ourselves  that  celestial 
presence  in  the  objects  on  which  we  gaze,  find  out  for  our- 
selves the  laws  which  make  them  what  they  are,  not  by 
comparing  them  with  any  antecedent  theory,  but  by  careful 
analysis  of  our  own  impressions,  by  asking  ourselves  what 
it  is  which  we  admire  in  them,  and  by  calling  that  good, 
and  calling  that  beautiful. 

So,  then,  if  admiration  be  the  first  fact  —  if  the  sense  of 
it  be  the  ultimate  ground  on  which  the  after  temple  of 
morality,  as  a  system,  upraises  itself — if  we  can  be  chal- 
lenged here  on  our  own  ground,  and  fail  to  make  it  good, 
what  we  call  the  life  of  the  soul  becomes  a  dream  of  a 
feeble  enthusiast,  and  we  moralists  a  mark  for  the  skeptic's 
finger  to  point  at  with  scorn. 

Bold  and  ably  urged  arguments  against  our  own  convic- 
tions, if  they  do  not  confuse  us,  will  usually  send  us  back 
over  our  ground  to  reexamine  the  strength  of  our  posi- 
tions ;  and  if  we  are  honest  with  ourselves,  we  shall  very 
often  find  points  of  some  uncertainty  left  unguarded,  of 
which  the  show  of  the  strength  of  our  enemy  will  oblige  us 
to  see  better  to  the  defense.  It  was  not  without  some 
shame,  and  much  uneasiness,  that,  while  we  were  ourselves 


Reynard  the  Fox.  489 

engaged  in  this  process,  full  of  indignation  with  Lord 
Macaulay,  we  heard  a  clear  voice  ringing  in  our  ear,  "  Who 
art  thou  that  judgest  another  ?  "  and  warning  us  of  the 
presence  in  our  own  heart  of  a  sympathy,  which  we  could 
not  "  deny,"  with  the  sadly  questionable  hero  of  the  German 
epic,  "  Reynard  the  Fox."  With  our  vulpine  friend,  we 
were  on  the  edge  of  the  very  same  abyss,  if,  indeed,  we 
were  not  rolling  in  the  depth  of  it.  By  what  sophistry 
could  we  justify  ourselves,  if  not  by  the  very  same  which 
we  had  just  been  so  eagerly  condemning?  And  our  con- 
science whispered  to  us  that  we  had  been  swift  to  detect  a 
fault  in  another,  because  it  was  the  very  fault  to  which,  in 
our  own  heart  of  hearts,  we  had  a  latent  leaning. 

Was  it  so  indeed,  then  ?  Was  Reineke  no  better  than 
lago?  Was  the  sole  difference  between  them,  that  the 
fates  sacer  who  had  sung  the  exploits  of  Reineke  loved  the 
wicked  rascal,  and  entangled  us  in  loving  him  ?  It  was  a 
question  to  be  asked.  And  yet  we  had  faith  enough  in  the 
straightforwardness  of  our  own  sympathies  to  feel  sure  that 
it  must  admit  of  some  sort  of  answer.  And,  indeed,  we 
rapidly  found  an  answer  satisfactory  enough  to  give  us 
time  to  breathe,  in  remembering  that  Reineke,  with  all  his 
roguery,  has  no  malice  in  him.  It  is  not  in  his  nature  to 
hate ;  he  could  not  do  it  if  he  tried.  The  characteristic 
of  lago  is  that  deep  motiveless  malignity  which  rejoices  in 
evil  as  its  proper  element  —  which  loves  evil  as  good  men 
love  virtue.  In  calculations  on  the  character  of  the  Moor, 
lago  despises  Othello's  unsuspicious  trustingness  as  imbe- 
cility, while  he  hates  him  as  a  man  because  his  nature  is 
the  perpetual  opposite  and  perpetual  reproach  of  his  own. 
Now,  Reineke  would  not  have  hurt  a  creature,  not  even 
Scharfenebbe,  the  crow's  wife,  when  she  came  to  peck  his 
eyes  out,  if  he  had  not  been  hungry;  and  that  yao-rpos 
dvayKT?,  that  craving  of  the  stomach,  makes  a  difference 
quite  infinite.  It  is  true  that,  like  lago,  Reineke  rejoices 
in  the  exercise  of  his  intellect ;  the  sense  of  his  power  and 


490  Reynard  the  Fox. 

the  scientific,  employment  of  his  time  are  a  real  delight  to 
him ;  but  tV,p,  as  we  said,  he  does  not  love  evil  for  its  own 
cake  ;  hs  is  only  somewhat  indifferent  to  it.  If  the  other 
inimals  venture  to  take  liberties  with  him,  he  will  repay 
them  in  their  own  coin,  and  get  his  quiet  laugh  at  them 
at  the  same  time  ;  but  the  object  generally  for  which  he 
lives  is  the  natural  one  of  getting  his  bread  for  himself  and 
his  family  ;  and,  as  the  great  moralist  says,  "  It  is  better  to 
be  bad  for  something  than  for  nothing."  Badness  generally 
is  undesirable  ;  but  badness  in  its  essence,  which  may  be 
called  heroic  badness,  is  gratuitous. 

But  this  first  thought  served  merely  to  give  us  a  mo- 
mentary relief  from  our  alarm,  and  we  determined  we 
would  sift  the  matter  to  the  bottom,  and  no  more  expose 
ourselves  to  be  taken  at  such  disadvantage.  We  went 
again  to  the  poem,  with  our  eyes  open,  and  our  moral  sense 
as  keenly  awake  as  a  genuine  wish  to  understand  our  feel- 
ings cculd  make  it.  We  determined  that  we  would  really 
know  what  we  did  feel  and  what  we  did  not.  We  would 
not  be  lightly  scared  away  from  our  friend,  but  neither 
would  we  any  more  allow  our  judgment  to  be  talked  down 
by  that  fluent  tongue  of  his ;  he  should  have  justice  from 
us,  he  and  his  biographer,  as  far  as  it  lay  with  us  to  discern 
justice  and  to  render  it. 

And  really  on  this  deliberate  perusal  it  did  seem  little 
less  than  impossible  that  we  could  find  any  conceivable  at- 
tribute illustrated  in  Eeineke's  proceedings  which  we  could 
dare  to  enter  in  our  catalogue  of  virtues,  and  not  blush  to 
read  it  there.  What  sin  is  there  in  the  Decalogue  in  which 
he  has  not  steeped  himself  to  the  lips  ?  To  the  lips,  shall 
we  say  ?  nay,  over  head  and  ears  —  rolling  and  rollicking 
in  sin.  Murder,  and  theft,  and  adultery;  sacrilege,  per- 
jury, lying  —  his  very  life  is  made  of  them.  On  he  goes 
to  the  end,  heaping  crime  on  crime,  and  lie  on  lie,  and  at 
last,  when  it  seems  that  justice,  which  has  been  so  long 
vainly  halting  after  him.  has  him  really  in  her  iron  grasp, 


Reynard  the  Fox.  491 

there  is  a  solemn  appeal  to  Heaven,  a  challenge,  a  battle 
ordeal,  in  which,  by  means  we  may  not  venture  even  to 
whisper,  the  villain  prospers,  and  comes  out  glorious,  vic- 
torious, amidst  the  applause  of  a  gazing  world.  To  crown 
it  all,  the  poet  tells  us  that,  under  the  disguise  of  the  an- 
imal name  and  form,  the  world  of  man  is  represented, 
and  the  true  course  of  it ;  and  the  idea  of  the  book  is, 
that  we  who  read  it  may  learn  therein  to  discern  between 
good  and  evil,  and  choose  the  first  and  avoid  the  last.  It 
seemed  beyond  the  power  of  sophistry  to  whitewash  Eei- 
neke,  and  the  interest  which  still  continued  to  cling  to  him 
seemed  too  nearly  to  resemble  the  unwisdom  of  the  multi- 
tude, with  whom  success  is  the  one  virtue,  and  failure  the 
only  crime. 

It  appeared,  too,  that  although  the  animal  disguises  were 
too  transparent  to  endure  a  moment's  reflection,  yet  that 
they  were  so  gracefully  worn  that  such  moment's  reflection 
was  not  to  be  come  at  without  an  effort.  Our  imagination 
following  the  costume,  did  imperceptibly  betray  our  judg- 
ment; we  admired  the  human  intellect,  the  ever-ready 
prompt  sagacity  and  presence  of  mind.  We  delighted  in 
the  satire  on  the  foolishnesses  and  greedinesses  of  our 
own  fellow-creatures ;  but  in  our  regard  for  the  hero  we 
forgot  his  humanity  wherever  it  was  his  interest  that  we 
should  forget  it,  and  while  we  admired  him  as  a  man  we 
judged  him  only  a  fox.  We  doubt  whether  it  would  have 
been  possible,  if  he  had  been  described  as  an  open  ac- 
knowledged biped  in  coat  and  trousers,  to  have  retained 
our  regard  for  him.  Something  or  other  in  us,  either 
real  rightmindedness,  or  humbug,  or  hypocrisy,  would  have 
obliged  us  to  mix  more  censure  with  our  liking  than  most 
of  us  do  in  the  case  as  it  stands.  It  may  be  that  the 
dress  of  the  fox  throws  us  off  our  guard,  and  lets  out  a 
secret  or  two  which  we  commonly  conceal  even  from  our- 
selves. When  we  have  to  pass  an  opinion  upon  bad  people, 
who  at  the  sume  time  are  clever  and  attractive,  we  say 


492  Reynard  ike  Fox. 

rather  what  \re  think  that  we  ought  to  feel  than  what  we 
feel  in  reality ;  while  with  Reineke,  being  but  an  animal, 
we  forget  to  make  ourselves  up,  and  for  once  our  genuine 
tastes  show  themselves  freely.  Some  degree  of  truth 
there  undoubtedly  is  in  this.  But  making  all  allowance 
for  it  —  making  all  and  over  allowance  for  the  trick  which 
is  passed  upon  our  senses,  there  still  remained  a  feeling  un- 
resolved. The  poem  was  not  solely  the  apotheosis  of  a 
rascal  in  whom  we  were  betrayed  into  taking  an  interest ; 
and  it  was  not  a  satire  merely  on  the  world,  and  on  the 
men  whom  the  world  delight  to  honor.  There  was  still 
something  which  really  deserved  to  be  liked  in  Reineke, 
and  what  it  was  we  had  as  yet  failed  to  discover. 

•'  Two  are  better  than  one,"  and  we  resolved  in  our  diffi- 
culty to  try  what  our  friends  might  have  to  say  about  it. 
The  appearance  of  the  Wurtemburg  animals  at  the  Exhi- 
bition came  fortunately  apropos  to  our  assistance ;  a  few 
years  ago  it  was  rare  to  find  a  person  who  had  read  the 
Fox  Epic ;  and  still  more,  of  course,  to  find  one  whose 
judgment  would  be  worth  taking  about  it.  But  now  the 
charming  figures  of  Reineke  himself,  and  the  Lion  Kingr 
and  Isegrim,  and  Bruin,  and  Bellyn,  and  Hintze,  and  Grim- 
bart,  had  set  all  the  world  asking  who  and  what  they  were, 
and  the  story  began  to  get  itself  known.  The  old  editions, 
which  had  long  slept  unbound  in  reams  upon  the  shelves, 
began  to  descend  and  clothe  themselves  in  green  and  crim- 
son. Mr.  Dickens  sent  a  summary  of  it  round  the  house- 
holds of  England.  Every  body  began  to  talk  of  Reineke ; 
and  now,  at  any  rate,  we  said  to  ourselves,  we  shall  see 
whether  we  are  alone  in  our  liking  —  whether  others  share 
in  this  strange  sympathy,  or  whether  it  be  some  unique  and 
monstrous  moral  obliquity  in  ourselves. 

We  set  to  work,  therefore,  with  all  earnestness,  feeling 
our  way  first  with  fear  and  delicacy  as  conscious  of  our 
own  delinquency,  to  gather  judgments  which  should  be 
riser  than  ovir  own,  and  correct  ourselves,  if  it  proved 


Reynard  the  Fox.  493 

that  we  required  correction,  with  whatever  severity  might 
be  necessary.  The  result  of  this  labor  of  ours  was  not  a 
little  surprising.  "We  found  that  women  invariably,  with 
that  clear  moral  instinct  of  theirs,  at  once  utterly  repro- 
bated and  detested  our  poor  Reynard ;  detested  the  hero 
and  detested  the  bard  who  sang  of  him  with  so  much  sym- 
pathy ;  while  men  we  found  almost  invariably  feeling  just 
as  we  felt  ourselves,  only  with  this  difference,  that  we  saw 
no  trace  of  uneasiness  in  them  about  the  matter.  It  was 
no  little  comfort  to  us,  moreover,  to  find  that  the  exceptions 
were  rather  among  the  half-men,  the  would-be  extremely 
good,  but  whose  goodness  was  of  that  dead  and  passive 
kind  which  spoke  to  but  a  small  elevation  of  thought  or 
activity ;  while  just  in  proportion  as  a  man  was  strong,  and 
real,  and  energetic,  was  his  ability  to  see  good  in  Reineke. 
It  was  really  most  strange ;  one  near  friend  of  ours  —  a 
man  who,  as  far  as  we  knew  (and  we  knew  him  well),  had 
never  done  a  wrong  thing — when  we  ventured  to  hint 
something  about  roguery,  replied,  "  You  see  he  was  such  a 
clever  rogue,  that  he  had  a  right."  Another,  whom  we 
pressed  more  closely  with  that  treacherous  cannibal  feast 
at  Malepartus,  on  the  body  of  poor  Lampe,  said  off-hand 
and  with  much  impatience  of  such  questioning,  "  Such 
fellows  were  made  to  be  eaten."  What  could  we  do  ?  It 
had  come  to  this  ;  —  as  in  the  exuberance  of  our  pleasure 
with  some  dear  child,  no  ordinary  epithet  will  sometimes 
reach  to  express  the  vehemence*  of  our  affection,  and  bor- 
rowing language  out  of  the  opposites,  we  call  him  little 
rogue  or  little  villain,  so  here,  reversing  the  terms  of  the 
analogy,  we  bestow  the  fullness  of  our  regard  on  Reineke 
because  of  that  transcendently  successful  roguery. 

When  we  asked  our  friends  how  they  came  to  feel  as 
they  did,  they  had  little  to  say.  They  were  not  persons 
who  could  be  suspected  of  any  latent  disposition  towards 
evil-doing  ;  and  yet  though  it  appeared  as  if  they  were  fall- 
ing under  the  description  of  those  unhappy  ones  who,  ii 


494  Reynard  the  Fox. 

they  did  not  such  things  themselves,  yet  "  had  pleasure  in 
those  who  did  them,"  they  did  not  care  to  justify  them- 
selves. The  fact  was  so :  ap^q  TO  on :  it  was  a  fact  — 
what  could  we  want  more  ?  Some  few  attempted  feebly  to 
maintain  that  the  book  was  a  satire.  But  this  only  moved 
the  difficulty  a  single  step ;  for  the  fact  of  the  sympathy 
remained  unimpaired,  and  if  it  was  a  satire  we  were  our- 
selves the  objects  of  it.  Others  urged  what  we  said  above, 
that  the  story  was  only  of  poor  animals  that,  according  to 
Descartes,  not  only  had  no  souls,  but  scarcely  had  even 
life  in  any  original  and  sufficient  sense,  and  therefore  we 
need  not  trouble  ourselves.  But  one  of  two  alternatives  it 
seemed  we  were  bound  to  choose,  either  of  which  was  fatal 
to  the  proposed  escape.  Either  there  was  a  man  hiding 
under  the  fox's  skin  ;  or  else,  if  real  foxes  have  such  brains 
as  Reineke  was  furnished  withal,  no  honest  doubt  could  be 
entertained  that  some  sort  of  conscience  was  not  forgotten 
in  the  compounding  of  him,  and  he  must  be  held  answer- 
able according  to  his  knowledge. 

What  would  Mr.  Carlyle  say  of  it,  we  thought,  with  his 
•might  and  right?  "  The  just  thing  in  the  long  run  is  the 
strong  thing.".  But  Reineke  had  a  long  run  out  and  came 
in  winner.  Does  he  only  "  seem  to  succeed  ?  "  Who  does 
succeed,  then,  if  he  no  more  than  seems?  The  vulpine 
intellect  knows  where  the  geese  live,  it  is  elsewhere  said ; 
but  among  Reineke's  victims  we  do  not  remember  one 
goose,  in  the  literal  sense  of  goose  ;  and  as  to  geese  meta- 
phorical, the  whole  visible  world  lies  down  complacently  at 
his  feet.  Nor  does  Mr.  Carlyle's  expressed  language  on 
this  very  poem  serve  any  better  to  help  us  —  nay,  it  seems 
as  if  he  feels  uneasy  in  the  neighborhood  of  so  strong  a 
rascal,  so  briefly  he  dismisses  him.  "  Worldly  prudence  is 
the  only  virtue  which  is  certain  of  its  reward."  Nay,  but 
there  is  more  in  it  than  that  •  no  worldly  prudence  would 
command  the  voices  which  have  been  given  in  to  us  for 
Reineke. 


Reynard  the  Fox.  495 

Three  only  possibilities  lay  now  before  us:  either  we 
should,  on  searching,  find  something  solid  in  the  Fox's  do- 
ings to  justify  success  ;  or  else  the  just  thing  was  not 
always  the  strong  thing ;  or  it  might-  be,  that  such  very 
semblance  of  success  was  itself  the  most  miserable  failure ; 
that  the  wicked  man  who  was  struck  down  and  foiled,  and 
foiled  again,  till  he  unlearnt  his  wickedness,  or  till  he  was 
disabled  from  any  more  attempting  it,  was  blessed  in  his 
disappointment ;  that  to  triumph  in  wickedness,  and  to 
continue  in  it  and  to  prosper  to  the  end,  was  the  last,  worst 
penalty  inflicted  by  the  divine  vengeance.  "lv'  aOdvaTos  y 
aSiKos  &v — to  go  on  with  injustice  through  this  world  and 
through  all  eternity,  uncleansed  by  any  purgatorial  fire, 
untaught  by  any  untoward  consequence  to  open  his  eyes 
and  to  see  in  its  true  accursed  form  the  miserable  demon 
to  which  he  has  sold  himself —  this,  of  all  catastrophes 
which  could  befall  an  evil  man,  was  the  deepest,  lowest,  and 
most  savoring  of  hell,  which  the  purest  of  the  Grecian 
moralists  could  reason  out  for  himself,  —  under  wMi  \\ 
third  hypothesis  many  an  uneasy  misgiving  would  vanish 
away,  and  Mr.  Carlyle's  broad  aphorism  might  be  accepted 
by  us  with  thankfulness. 

It  appeared,  therefore,  at  any  rate,  to  have  to  come  to 
this  —  that  if  we  wanted  a  solution  for  our  sphinx  enigma, 
no  CEdipus  was  likely  to  rise  and  find  it  for  us ;  and  that 
if  we  wanted  help,  we  must  make  it  for  ourselves.  This 
only  we  found,  that  if  we  sinned  in  our  regard  for  the  un- 
worthy animal,  we  shared  our  sin  with  the  largest  number 
of  our  own  sex  :  comforted  with  the  sense  of  good  fellow- 
ship, we  went  boldly  to  work  upon  our  consciousness ;  and 
the  imperfect  analysis  which  we  succeeded  in  accomplish- 
ing, we  here  lay  before  you,  whoever  you  may  be,  who 
have  felt,  as  we  have  felt,  a  regard  which  was  a  moral  dis- 
turbance lo  you,  and  which  you  will  be  pleased  if  we  ena- 
ble you  to  justify  — 

"  Si  quid  novisti  rectius  istis, 
Candidas  imperti;  si  non,  his  utere  niecum." 


496  Reynard  the  Fox. 

Following  the  clew  which  was  thrust  into  our  hand  by 
the  marked  difference  of  the  feelings  of  men  upon  the  sub- 
ject, from  those  of  women,  we  were  at  once  satisfied  that 
Reineke's  goodness,  if  he  had  any,  must  lay  rather  in  the 
active  than  the  passive  department  of  life.  The  negative 
obedience  to  prohibitory  precepts,  under  which  women  are 
bound  as  well  as  men,  as  was  already  too  clear,  we  were 
obliged  to  surrender  as  hopeless.  But  it  seemed  as  if,  with 
respect  to  men  whose  business  is  to  do,  and  to  labor,  and 
to  accomplish,  this  negative  test  was  a  seriously  imperfect 
one  ;  and  it  was  quite  as  possible  that  a  man  who  unhap- 
pily had  broken  many  prohibitions  might  yet  exhibit  posi- 
tive excellences,  as  that  he  might  walk  through  life  pick- 
ing his  way  with  the  utmost  assiduity,  risking  nothing,  and 
doing  nothing,  not  committing  a  single  sin,  but  keeping 
his  talent  carefully  wrapt  up  in  a  napkin,  and  get  sent,  in 
the  end,  to  outer  darkness  for  his  pains,  as  an  unprofitable 
servant.  And  this  appeared  the  more  important  to  us,  as 
it  was  very  little  dwelt  upon  by  religious  or  moral  teach- 
ers ;  at  the  end  of  six  thousand  years,  the  popular  notion 
of  virtue,  as  far  as  it  could  get  itself  expressed,  had  not 
risen  beyond  the  mere  abstinence  from  certain  specific  bad 
actions. 

The  king  of  the  beasts  forgives  Eeineke  on  account  of 
the  substantial  services  which  at  various  times  he  has  ren- 
dered. His  counsel  was  always  the  wisest,  his  hand  the 
promptest  in  cases  of  difficulty ;  and  all  that  dexterity,  and 
politeness,  and  courtesy,  and  exquisite  culture  had  not 
been  learnt  without  an  effort,  or  without  conquering  many 
undesirable  tendencies  in  himself.  Men  are  not  born  with 
any  art  in  its  perfection,  and  Reineke  had  made  himself 
valuable  by  his  own  sagacity  and  exertion.  Now,  on  the 
human  stage,  a  man  who  had  made  himself  valuable  is  cer- 
tain to  be  valued.  However  we  may  pretend  to  estimate 
men  according  to  the  wrong  things  which  they  have  done, 
or  abstained  from  doing,  we  in  fact  follow  the  example  of 


Reynard  the  Fox.  497 

Nobel,  the  king  of  the  beasts ;  we  give  them  their  places 
among  us  according  to  the  serviceableness  and  capability 
which  they  display.  We  might  mention  not  a  few  eminent 
public  servants,  whom  the  world  delights  to  honor  —  min- 
isters, statesmen,  lawyers,  men  of  science,  artists,  poets, 
soldiers,  who,  if  they  were  tried  by  the  negative  test,  would 
show  but  a  poor  figure ;  yet  their  value  is  too  real  to  be 
dispensed  with ;  and  we  tolerate  unquestionable  wrong  to 
secure  the  services  of  eminent  ability.  The  world  really 
does  this,  and  it  always  has  really  done  it  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  human  history ;  and  it  is  only  indolence  or 
cowardice  which  has  left  our  ethical  teaching  halting  so 
far  behind  the  universal  and  necessary  practice.  Even 
questionable  prima  donnas,  in  virtue  of  their  sweet  voices, 
have  their  praises  hymned  in  drawing-room  and  newspaper ; 
and  applause  rolls  over  them,  and  gold  and  bouquets 
shower  on  them  from  lips  and  hands  which,  except  for 
those  said  voices,  would  treat  them  to  a  ruder  reward.  In 
real  fact,  we  take  our  places  in  this  world,  not  according  to 
what  we  are  not,  but  according  to  what  we  are.  His  Holi- 
ness Pope  Clement,  when  his  audience-room  rang  with 
furious  outcries  for  justice  on  Benvenuto  Cellini,  who,  as 
far  as  half-a-dozen  murders  could  form  a  title,  was  as  fair  a 
candidate  for  the  gallows  as  ever  swung  from  that  unlucky 
wood,  replied,  "  All  this  is  very  well,  gentlemen ;  these 
murders  are  bad  things  ;  we  know  that.  But  where  am  I 
to  get  another  Benvenuto  if  you  hang  this  one  for  me  ?  " 

Or,  to  take  an  acknowledged  hero,  one  of  the  old  Greek 
sort,  the  theme  of  the  song  of  the  greatest  of  human  poets, 
whom  it  is  less  easy  to  refuse  to  admire  than  even  our 
friend  Reineke.  Take  Ulysses.  It  cannot  be  said  that  he 
kept  his  hands  from  taking  what  was  not  his,  or  his  tongue 
from  speaking  what  was  not  true  ;  and  if  Frau  Ermelyn 
had  to  complain  (as  indeed  there  was  too  much  reason  for 
her  complaining)  of  certain  infirmities  in  her  good  husband 
Reineke,  Penelope,  too,  might  have  urged  a  thing  or  two 

32 


498  Reynard  the  Fox. 

if  she  had  known  as  much  about  the  matter  as  we  know, 
which  the  modern  moralist  would  find  it  hard  to  excuse. 

After  all  is  said,  the  capable  man  is  the  man  to  be  ad- 
mired. The  man  who  tries  and  fails,  what  is  the  use  of 
him  ?  We  are  in  this  world  to  do  something  —  not  to  fail 
in  doing  it.  Of  your  bunglers  —  helpless,  inefficient  per- 
sons, "  unfit  alike  for  good  or  ill,"  who  -try  one  thing,  and 
fail  because  they  are  not  strong  enough ;  and  another,  be- 
cause they  have  not  energy  enough  ;  and  a  third,  because 
they  have  no  talent  —  inconsistent,  unstable,  and  therefore 
never  to  excel,  what  shall  we  say  of  them  ?  what  use  is 
there  in  them  ?  what  hope  is  there  of  them  ?  what  can 
we  wish  for  them  ?  TO  /ATJ-OT'  drai  TTO.VT  apurrov.  It 
were  better  for  them  they  had  never  been  born.  To  be 
able  to  do  what  a  man  tries  to  do,  that  is  the  first  requi- 
site ;  and  given  that,  we  may  hope  all  things  for  him. 
"  Hell  is  paved  with  good  intentions,"  the  proverb  says  ; 
and  the  enormous  proportion  of  bad  successes  in  this  life 
lie  between  the  desire  and  the  execution.  Give  us  a  man 
who  is  able  to  do  what  he  settles  that  he  desires  to  do,  and 
we  have  the  one  thing  indispensable.  If  he  can  succeed 
doing  ill,  much  more  he  can  succeed  doing  well.  Show 
him  better,  and,  at  any  rate,  there  is  a  chance  that  he  will 
do  better. 

We  are  not  concerned  here  with  Benvenuto  or  with 
Ulysses  further  than  to  show,  through  the  position  which 
we  all  consent  to  give  them,  that  there  is  much  unreality 
in  our  common  moral  talk,  against  which  we  must  be  on 
our  guard.  And  if  we  fling  off  an  old  friend,  and  take  to 
affecting  a  hatred  of  him  which  we  do  not  feel,  we  have 
scarcely  gained  by  the  exchange,  even  though  originally 
our  friendship  may  have  been  misplaced. 

Capability  no  one  will  deny  to  Reineke.  That  is  the 
very  differentia  of  him.  An  "  animal  capable  "  would  be 
his  sufficient  definition.  Here  is  another  very  genuinely 
valuable  feature  about  him  —  his  wonderful  singleness  of 


Reynard  the  Fox.  499 

character.  Lying,  treacherous,  cunning  scoundrel  as  he 
is,  there  is  a  wholesqme  absence  of  humbug  about  him. 
Cheating  all  the  world,  he  never  cheats  himself;  and  while 
he  is  a  hypocrite,  he  is  always  a  conscious  hypocrite  —  a 
form  of  character,  however  paradoxical  it  may  seem,  a 
great  deal  more  accessible  to  good  influences  than  the 
other  of  the  unconscious  sort.  Ask  Reineke  for  the  prin- 
ciples of  his  life,  and  if  it  suited  his  purpose  to  tell  you,  he 
could  do  so  with  the  greatest  exactness.  There  would  be 
no  discrepancy  between  the  profession  and  the  practice. 
He  is  most  truly  single-minded,  and  therefore  stable  in  his 
ways,  and  therefore,  as  the  world  goes,  and  in  the  world's 
sense,  successful.  "Whether  really  successful  is  a  question 
we  do  not  care  here  to  enter  on ;  but  only  to  say  this  — 
that  of  all  unsuccessful  men  in  every  sense,  either  divine, 
or  human,  or  devilish,  there  is  none  equal  to  Bunyan's  Mr. 
Facing-both-ways  —  the  fellow  with  one  eye  on  heaven 
and  one  on  earth  —  who  sincerely  preaches  one  thing,  and 
sincerely  does  another ;  and  from  the  intensity  of  his  un- 
reality is  unable  either  to  see  or  feel  the  contradiction. 
Serving  God  with  his  lips,  and  with  the  half  of  his  mind 
which  is  not  bound  up  in  the  world,  and  serving  the  devil 
with  his  actions,  and  with  the  other  half,  he  is  substantially 
trying  to  cheat  both  God  and  the  devil,  and  is,  in  fact,  only 
cheating  himself  and  his  neighbors.  This,  of  all  characters 
upon  the  earth,  appears  to  us  to  be  the  one  of  whom  there 
is  no  hope  at  all  —  a  character  becoming,  in  these  days, 
alarmingly  abundant ;  and  the  abundance  of  which  makes 
us  find  even  in  a  Reineke  an  inexpressible  relief. 

But  what  we  most  thoroughly  value  in  him  is  his  ca- 
pacity. He  can  do  what  he  sets  to  work  to  do.  That 
blind  instinct  with  which  the  world  shouts  and  claps  its 
hand  for  the  successful  man,  is  one  of  those  latent  im- 
pulses in  us  which  are  truer  than  we  know ;  it  is  the  uni- 
versal confessional  to  which  Nature  leads  us,  and,  in  her 
intolerance  of  disguise  and  hypocrisy,  compels  us  to  be  our 


500  Reynard  the  Fox. 

own  accusers.  Whoever  can  succeed  in  a  given  condition 
of  society,  can  succeed  only  in  virtue  of  fulfilling  the  terms 
which  society  exacts  of  him  ;  and  if  he  can  fulfill  them  tri- 
umphantly, of  course  it  rewards  him  and  praises  him.  He 
is  what  the  rest  of  the  world  would  be  if  their  powers 
were  equal  to  their  desires.  He  has  accomplished  what 
they  all  are  vaguely,  and  with  imperfect  consistency,  strug- 
gling to  accomplish  ;  and  the  character  of  the  conqueror 
—  the  means  and  appliances  by  which  he  has  climbed  up 
that  great  pinnacle  on  which  he  stands  victorious,  the  ob- 
served of  all  observers,  is  no  more  than  a  very  exact  indi- 
cator of  the  amount  of  real  virtue  in  the  age,  out  of  which 
he  stands  prominent. 

We  are  forced  to  acknowledge  that  it  was  not  a  very 
virtuous  age  in  which  Reineke  made  himself  a  great  man  ; 
but  that  was  the  fault  of  the  age  as  much  as  the  fault  of  him. 
His  nature  is  to  succeed  wherever  he  is.  If  the  age  had 
required  something  else  of  him,  then  he  would  have  been 
something  else.  Whatever  it  had  said  to  him,  u  Do,  and  I 
will  make  you  my  hero,"  that  Reineke  would  have  done. 
No  appetite  makes  a  slave  of  him  —  no  faculty  refuses 
obedience  to  his  will.  His  entire  nature  is  under  perfect 
organic  control  to  the  one  supreme  authority.  And  the 
one  object  for  which  he  lives,  and  for  which,  let  his  lot 
have  been  cast  in  whatever  century  it  might,  he  would 
always  have  lived,  is  to  rise,  to  thrive,  to  prosper,  and 
become  great. 

The  world  as  he  found  it  said  unto  him,  —  Prey  upon 
us  ;  we  are  your  oyster,  let  your  wit  open  us.  If  you  will 
only  do  it  cleverly  —  if  you  will  take  care  that  we  shall 
not  close  upon  your  fingers  in  the  process,  you  may  devour 
us  at  your  pleasure,  and  we  shall  feel  ourselves  highly 
honored.  Can  we  wonder  at  a  fox  of  Reineke's  abilities 
taking  such  a  world  at  its  word  ? 

And  let  it  not  be  supposed  that  society  in  this  earth  of 
ours  is  ever  so  viciously  put  together,  is  ever  so  totally 


Reynard  the  Fox.  501 

without  organic  life,  that  a  rogue,  unredeemed  by  any 
merit,  can  prosper  in  it.  There  is  no  strength  in  rotten- 
ness ;  and  when  it  comes  to  that,  society  dies  and  falls  in 
pieces.  Success,  as  it  is  called,  even  worldly  success,  is 
impossible,  without  some  exercise  of  what  is  called  moral 
virtue,  without  some  portion  of  it,  infinitesimally  small, 
perhaps,  but  still  some.  Courage,  for  instance,  steady  self- 
confidence,  self- trust,  self-reliance  —  that  only  basis  and 
foundation  stone  on  which  a  strong  character  can  rear 
itself —  do  we  not  see  this  in  Reineke  ?  While  he  lives, 
he  lives  for  himself;  but  if  he  comes  to  dying,  he  can  die 
like  his  betters  ;  and  his  wit  is  not  of  that  effervescent 
sort  which  will  fly  away  at  the  sight  of  death  and  leave 
him  panic-stricken.  It  is  true  there  is  a  meaning  to  that 
word  courage,  which  was  perhaps  not  to  be  found  in  the 
dictionary  in  which  Eeineke  studied.  "  I  hope  I  am  afraid 
of  nothing,  Tim,"  said  my  Uncle  Toby,  "  except  doing  a 
wrong  thing."  With  Reineke  there  was  no  "except." 
His  digestive  powers  shrank  from  no  action,  good  or  bad, 
which  would  serve  his  turn.  Yet  it  required  no  slight 
measure  of  courage  to  treat  his  fellow- creatures  with  the 
steady  disrespect  with  which  Reineke  treats  them.  To 
walk  along  among  them,  regardless  of  any  interest  but  his 
own ;  out  of  mere  wantonness  to  hook  them  up  like  so 
many  cockchafers,  and  spin  them  for  his  pleasure;  not 
like  Domitian,  with  an  imperial  army  to  hold  them  down 
during  the  operation,  but  with  no  other  assistance  but  his 
own  little  body  and  large  wit ;  it  was  something  to  ven 
ture  upon.  And  a  world  which  would  submit  to  be  so 
treated,  what  could  he  do  but  despise  ? 

To  the  animals  utterly  below  ourselves,  external  to  our 
own  species,  we  hold  ourselves  bound  by  no  law.  We  say 
to  them,  vos  non  vobis,  without  any  uneasy  misgivings.  We 
rob  the  bees  of  their  honey,  the  cattle  of  their  lives,  the 
horse  and  the  ass  of  their  liberty.  We  kill  the  wild 
animals  that  they  may  not  interfere  with  our  pleasures  ; 


502  Reynard  the  Fox. 

and  acknowledge  ourselves  bound  to  them  by  no  terms 
except  what  are  dictated  by  our  own  convenience.  And 
why  should  Reineke  have  acknowledged  an  obligation  any 
more  than  we,  to  creatures  so  utterly  below  himself?  He 
was  so  clever,  as  our  friend  said,  that  he  had  a  right. 
That  he  could  treat  them  so,  Mr.  Carlyle  would  say,  proves 
that  he  had  a  right. 

But  it  is  a  mistake  to  say  he  is  without  a  conscience. 
Xo  bold  creature  is  ever  totally  without  one.  Even  lago 
shows  some  sort  of  conscience.  Respecting  nothing  else 
in  heaven  or  earth,  he  respects  and  even  reverences  his 
own  intellect.  After  one  of  those  sweet  interviews  with 
Roderigo,  his,  what  we  must  call  conscience,  takes  him  to 
account  for  his  company ;  and  he  pleads  to  it  in  his  own 
justification,  — 

"For  I  mine 'own  gained  knowledge  should  profane 
Were  I  to  waste  myself  with  such  a  snipe 
But  for  my  sport  and  profit." 

Reineke,  if  we  take  the  mass  of  his  misdeeds,  preyed 
chiefly,  like  our  own  Robin  Hood,  on  rogues  who  were 
greater  rogues  than  himself.  If  Bruin  chose  to  steal 
Rusteviel's  honey,  if  Hintze  trespassed  in  the  priest's 
granary,  they  were  but  taken  in  their  own  evil-doings. 
.And  what  is  Isegrim,  the  worst  of  Reineke's  victims,  but 
a  great  heavy,  stupid,  lawless  brute  ?  —  fair  type,  we  will 
suppose,  of  not  a  few  Front-de-Boeufs  and  other  so-called 
nobles  of  the  poet's  era,  whose  will  to  do  mischief  was 
happily  limited  by  their  obtuseness.  We  remember  that 
French  baron  —  Gilbert  de  Retz,  we  believe,  was  his 
name  —  who,  like  Isegrim,  had  studied  at  the  universities, 
and  passed  for  learned,  whose  after-dinner  pastime  for 
many  years,  as  it  proved  at  last,  was  to  cut  children's 
throats  for  the  pleasure  of  watching  them  die.  We  may 
well  feel  gratitude  that  a  Reineke  was  provided  to  be  the 
scourge  of  such  monsters  as  these ;  and  we  have  a 
thorough  pure,  exuberant  satisfaction  in  seeing  the  intel« 


Reynard  the  Fox.  503 

lect  in  that  little  weak  body  triumph  over  them  and  tram- 
ple them  down.  This,  indeed,  this  victory  of  intellect 
over  brute  force,  is  one  great  secret  of  our  pleasure  in  the 
poem,  and  goes  far,  in  the  Carlyle  direction,  to  satisfy  us, 
that,  at  any  rate,  it  is  not  given  to  mere  base  physical 
strength  to  win  in  the  battle  of  life,  even  in  times  when 
physical  strength  is  apparently  the  only  recognized  power. 

We  are  insensibly  falling  from  our  self-assumed  judicial 
office  into  that  of  advocacy ;  and  sliding  into  what  may 
be  plausibly  urged,  rather  than  standing  fast  on  what  we 
can  surely  affirm.  Yet  there  are  cases  when  it  is  fitting 
for  the  judge  to  become  the  advocate  of  an  undefended 
prisoner  ;  and  advocacy  is  only  plausible  when  a  few  words 
of  truth  are  mixed  with  what  we  say,  like  the  few  drops 
of  wine  which  color  and  faintly  flavor  the  large  draught 
of  water.  Such  few  grains  or  drops,  whatever  they  may 
be,  we  must  leave  to  the  kindness  of  Reynard's  friends  to 
distill  for  him,  while  we  continue  a  little  longer  in  the  same 
strain. 

After  all,  it  may  be  said,  what  is  it  in  man's  nature 
which  is  really  admirable  ?  It  is  idle  for  us  to  waste  our 
labor  in  passing  Eeineke  through  the  moral  crucible  unless 
we  shall  recognize  the  results  when  we  obtain  them ;  and 
in  these  moral  sciences  our  analytical  tests  can  only  be 
obtained  by  a  study  of  our  own  internal  experience.  If 
we  desire  to  know  what  we  admire  in  Reineke,  we  must 
look  for  what  we  admire  in  ourselves.  And  what  is  that  ? 
Is  it  what  on  Sundays,  and  on  set  occasions,  and  when  we 
are  mounted  on  our  moral  stilts,  we  are  pleased  to  call 
goodness,  probity,  obedience,  humility?  Is  it?  Is  it 
really  ?  Is  it  not  rather  the  face  and  form  which  Nature 
made  —  the  strength  which  is  ours,  we  know  not  how  — 
our  talents,  our  rank,  our  possessions  ?  It  appears  to  us 
that  we  most  value  in  ourselves  and  most  admire  in  our 
neighbor,  not  acquisitions,  but  gifts.  A  man  does  not 
praise  himself  for  being  good.  If  he  praise  himself  he  is 


504  Reynard  tlie  Fox. 

not  good.  The  first  condition  of  goodness  is  forgetfulness 
of  self;  and  where  self  has  entered,  tinder  however  plausi- 
ble a  form,  the  health  is  but  skin-deep,  and  underneath 
there  is  corruption.  And  so  through  every  thing :  we 
value,  we  are  vain  of,  proud  of,  or  whatever  you  please  to 
call  it,  not  what  we  have  done  for  ourselves,  but  what  has 
been  done  for  us  —  what  has  been  given  to  us  by  the 
upper  powers.  We  look  up  to  high-born  men,  to  wealthy 
men,  to  fortunate  men,  to  clever  men.  Is  it  not  so? 
Whom  do  we  choose  for  the  county  member,  the  magis- 
trate, the  officer,  the  minister  ?  The  good  man  we  leave 
to  the  humble  enjoyment  of  his  goodness,  and  we  look  out 
for  the  able  or  the  wealthy.  And  again  of  the  wealthy, 
as  if  on  every  side  to  witness  to  the  same  universal  law, 
the  man  who  with  no  labor  of  his  own  has  inherited  a  for- 
tune, ranks  higher  in  the  world's  esteem  than  his  father 
who  made  it.  We  take  rank  by  descent.  Such  of  us  as 
have  the  longest  pedigree,  and  are  therefore  the  farthest 
removed  from  the  first  who  made  the  fortune  and  founded 
the  family,  we  are  the  noblest.  The  nearer  to  the  fountain, 
the  fouler  the  stream  ;  and  that  first  ancestor,  who  has 
soiled  his  fingers  by  labor,  is  no  better  than  a  parvenu. 

And  as  it  is  with  what  we  value,  so  it  is  with  what  we 
blame.  It  is  an  old  story,  that  there  is  no  one  who  would 
not  in  his  heart  prefer  being  a  knave  to  being  a  fool ;  and 
when  we  fail  in  a  piece  of  attempted  roguery,  as  Coleridge 
has  wisely  observed,  though  reasoning  unwisely  from  it,  Wb 
lay  the  blame,  not  on  our  own  moral  nature,  for  which  we 
are  responsible,  but  on  our  intellectual,  for  which  we  are 
not  responsible.  We  do  not  say  what  knaves,  we  say  what 
fools,  we  have  been  ;  perplexing  Coleridge,  who  regards  it 
as  a  phenomenon  of  some  deep  moral  disorder ;  whereas 
it  is  but  one  more  evidence  of  the  universal  fact  that  gift* 
are  the  true  and  proper  object  of  appreciation ;  and  as  we 
admire  men  for  possessing  gifts,  so  we  blame  them  for  their 
absence.  The  noble  man  is  the  gifted  man  ;  the  ignoble 


Reynard  the  Fox.  505 

is  the  ungifted;  and  therefore  we  have  only  to  state  a 
simple  law  in  simple  language  to  have  a  full  solution  of 
the  enigma  of  Reineke.  He  has  gifts  enough :  of  that,  at 
least,  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  and  if  he  lacks  the  gift  to  use 
them  in  the  way  which  we  call  good,  at  least  he  uses  them 
successfully.  His  victims  are  less  gifted'  than  he,  and 
therefore  less  noble ;  and  therefore  he  has  a  right  to  use 
them  as  he  pleases. 

And,  after  all,  what  are  these  victims  ?  Among  the 
heaviest  charges  which  were  urged  against  him  was  the 
killing  and  eating  of  that  wretched  Scharfenebbe  —  Sharp- 
beak  —  the  crow's  wife.  It  is  well  that  there  are  two  sides 
to  every  story.  A  poor  weary  fox,  it  seemed,  was  not  to  be 
allowed  to  enjoy  a  quiet  sleep  in  the  sunshine  but  what  an 
unclean  carrion  bird  must  come  down  and  take  a  peck  at 
him.  We  can  feel  no  sympathy  with  the  outcries  of  the 
crow  husband  over  the  fate  of  the  unfortunate  Sharpbeak. 
Wofully,  he  says,  he  flew  over  the  place  where,  a  few  mo- 
ments before,  in  the  glory  of  glossy  plumage,  a  loving 
wife  sat  croaking  out  her  passion  for  him,  and  found 
nothing  —  nothing  but  a  little  blood  and  a  few  torn  feath- 
ers—  all  else  clean  gone  and  utterly  abolished.  Well, 
and  if  it  was  so,  it  was  a  blank  prospect  for  him,  but  the 
earth  was  well  rid  of  her ;  and  for  herself,  it  was  a  higher 
fate  to  be  assimilated  into  the  body  of  Reineke  than  to  re- 
main in  a  miserable  individuality  to  be  a  layer  of  carrion 
crows'  eggs. 

And  then  for  Bellyn,  and  for  Bruin,  and  for  Hintze,  and 
the  rest,  who  would  needs  be  meddling  with  what  was  no 
concern  of  theirs  —  what  is  there  in  them  to  challenge 
either  regret  or  pity  ?  They  made  love  to  their  occupation. 

"  'T  is  dangerous  when  the  baser  nature  falls 
Between  the  pass  and  fell  incensed  points 
Of  mighty  opposites : 
They  lie  not  near  our  conscience." 

Ah !  if  they  were  all.     But   there  is  one  misdeed,  ono 


506  Reynard  the  Fox. 

which  outweighs  all  others  whatsoever  —  a  crime  which  it 
is  useless  to  palliate,  let  our  other  friend  say  what  he 
pleased ;  and  Reineke  himself  felt  it  so.  It  sat  heavy, 
for  him,  on  his  soul,  and  alone  of  all  the  actions  of  his  life 
we  are  certain  that  he  wished  it  undone  —  the  death  and 
eating  of  that  poor  foolish  Lampe,  the  hare.  It  was  a 
paltry  revenge  in  Reineke.  Lampe  had  told  tales  of  him ; 
he  had  complained  that  Reineke,  under  pretense  of  teach- 
ing him  his  Catechism,  had  seized  him  and  tried  to  mur- 
der him ;  and  though  he  provoked  his  fate  by  thrusting 
himself,  after  such  a  warning,  into  the  jaws  of  Malepartus, 
Reineke  betrays  an  uneasiness  about  it  in  confession  ;  and, 
unlike  himself,  feels  it  necessary  to  make  some  sort  of  an 
excuse. 

Grimbart,  the  badger,  Reineke's  father  confessor,  had 
been  obliged  to  speak  severely  of  the  seriousness  of  the 
offense.  "  You  see,"  Reineke  answers,  — 

"  To  help  oneself  out  through  the  world  is  a  queer  sort  of  business :  one  can- 
not 

Keep,  you  know,  quite  altogether  as  pure  as  one  can  in  the  cloister. 
When  we  are  handling  honey  we  now  and  then  lick  at,  our  fingers. 
Lampe  sorely  provoked  me ;  he  frisked  about  this  way  and  that  way, 
Up  and  down,  under  my  eyes,  and  he  looked  so  fat  and  so  jolly, 
Really  I  could  not  resist  it.    I  entirely  forgot  how  I  loved  him. 
And  then  he  was  so  stupid." 

But  even  this  acknowledgment  does  not  satisfy  Reineke. 
His  mind  is  evidently  softened,  and  it  was  on  that  occasion 
that  he  poured  out  his  pathetic  lamentation  over  the  sad 
condition  of  the  world — so  fluent,  so  musical,  so  touching, 
that  Grimbart  listened  with  wide  eyes,  unable,  till  it  had 
run  to  the  length  of  a  sermon,  to  collect  himself.  It  is 
true  that  at  last  his  office  as  ghostly  father  obliged  him  to 
put  in  a  slight  demurrer :  — 

''  Uncle,  the  badger  replied,  why  these  are  the  sins  of  your  neighbors ; 
Yours,!  should  think,  were  sufficient,  and  rather  more  now  to  the  purpose." 

But  he  sighs  to  think  what  a  bishop  Reineke  would  have 
made. 


Reynard  the  Fox.  507 

And  now,  for  the  present,  farewell  to  Reineke  Fuchs, 
and  to  the  song  in  which  his  glory  is  enshrined  —  the  Welt 
Bibel,  Bible  of  this  world,  as  Goethe  called  it,  the  most  ex- 
quisite moral  satire,  as  we  will  call  it,  which  has  ever  been 
composed.  It  is  not  addressed  to  a  passing  mode  of  folly 
or  of  profligacy,  but  it  touches  the  perennial  nature  of 
mankind,  laying  bare  our  own  sympathies,  and  tastes,  and 
weaknesses,  with  as  keen  and  true  an  edge  as  when  the 
living  world  of  the  old  Swabian  poet  winced  under  its  ear- 
liest utterance. 

Humorous  in  the  high  pure  sense,  every  laugh  which  it 
gives  may  have  its  echo  in  a  sigh,  or  may  glide  into  it  as  ex- 
citement subsides  into  thought ;  and  yet,  for  those  who  do 
not  care  to  find  matter  there  either  for  thought  or  sadness, 
may  remain  innocently  as  a  laugh. 

Too  strong  for  railing,  too  kindly  and  loving  for  the 
bitterness  of  irony,  the  poem  is,  as  the  world  itself,  a  book 
where  each  man  will  find  what  his  nature  enables  him  to 
see,  which  gives  us  back  each  our  own  image,  and  teaches 
us  each  the  lesson  which  each  of  us  desires  to  learn. 


THE   CAT'S   PILGRIMAGE. 

1850. 

PART   I. 

"  IT  is  all  very  fine,"  said  the  Cat,  yawning,  and  stretch- 
ing herself  against  the  fender,  "  but  it  is  rather  a  bore  ;  I 
don't  see  the  use  of  it."  She  raised  herself,  and  arranging 
her  tail  into  a  ring,  and  seating  herself  in  the  middle  of  it, 
with  her  fore-paws  in  a  straight  line  from  her  shoulders,  at 
right  angles  to  the  hearth-rug,  she  looked  pensively  at  the 
fire.  "  It  is  very  odd,"  she  went  on  :  "  there  is  my  poor 
Tom ;  he  is  gone.  I  saw  him  stretched  out  in  the  yard.  I 
spoke  to  him,  and  he  took  no  notice  of  me.  He  won't,  I 
suppose,  ever  any  more,  for  they  put  him  under  the  earth. 
Nice, fellow  he  was.  It  is  wonderful  how  little  one  cares 
about  it.  So  many  jolly  evenings  we  spent  together;  and 
now  I  seem  to  get  on  quite  as  well  without  him.  I  wonder 
what  has  become  of  him  ;  and  my  last  children,  too,  what 
has  become  of  them  ?  What  are  we  here  for  ?  I  would 
ask  the  men,  only  they  are  so  conceited  and  stupid  they 
can't  understand  what  we  say.  I  hear  them  droning  away, 
teaching  their  little  ones  every  day ;  telling  them  to  be 
good,  and  to  do  what  they  are  bid,  and  all  that.  Nobody 
ever  tells  me  to  do  any  thing ;  if  they  do  I  don't  do  it,  and  I 
am  very  good.  I  wonder  whether  I  should  be  any  better 
if  I  minded  more.  I  '11  ask  the  Dog. 

"  Dog,"  said  she,  to  a  little  fat  spaniel  coiled  up  on  a  mat. 


The  Cat's  Pilgrimage.  509 

like  a  lady's  muff  with  a  head  and  tail  stuck  on  to  it,  "  Dog, 
what  do  you  make  of  it  all  ?  " 

The  Dog  faintly  opened  his  languid  eyes,  looked  sleepily 
at  the  Cat  for  a  moment,  and  dropped  them  again. 

"  Dog,"  she  said,  "  I  want  to  talk  to  you ;  don't  go  to 
sleep.  Can't  you  answer  a  civil  question  ?  " 

"  Don't  bother  me,"  said  the  Dog,  "  I  am  tired.  I  stood 
on  my  hind-legs  ten  minutes  this  morning  before  I  could 
get  my  breakfast,  and  it  has  n't  agreed  with  me." 

"  Who  told  you  to  do  it  ?  "  said  the  Cat 

"  Why,  the  lady  I  have  to  take  care  of  me,"  replied  the 
Dog. 

"  Do  you  feel  any  better  for  it,  Dog,  after  you  have  been 
standing  on  your  legs  ?  "  asked  she. 

"  Hav'n't  I  told  you,  you  stupid  Cat,  that  it  has  n't  agreed 
with  me  ;  let  me  go  to  sleep  and  don't  plague  me." 

"  But  I  mean,"  persisted  the  Cat,  "  do  you  feel  improved, 
as  the  men  call  it  ?  They  tell  their  children  that  if  they 
do  what  they  are  told  they  will  improve,  and  grow  good  and 
great.  Do  you  feel  good  and  great  ?  " 

"  What  do  I  know  ? "  said  the  Dog.  "  I  eat  my  break- 
fast and  am  happy.  Let  me  alone." 

"  Do  you  never  think,  O  Dog  without  a  soul !  Do  you 
never  wonder  what  dogs  are,  and  what  this  world  is  ?  " 

The  Dog  stretched  himself,  and  rolled  his  eyes  lazily 
round  the  room.  "  I  conceive,"  he  said,  "  that  the  world 
is  for  dogs,  and  men  and  women  are  put  into  it  to  take  care 
of  dogs  ;  women  to  take  care  of  little  dogs  like  me,  and  men 
for  the  big  dogs  like  those  in  the  yard  —  and  cats,"  he  con- 
tinued, "  are  to  know  their  place,  and  not  to  be  trouble- 
some." 

"  They  beat  you  sometimes,"  said  the  Cat.  ':  Why  do 
they  do  that  ?  They  never  beat  me." 

"  If  they  forget  their  places,  and  beat  me,"  snarled  the 
Dog,  "  I  bite  them,  and  they  don't  do  it  again.  I  should 
like  to  bite  you,  too.  you  nasty  Cat ;  you  have  woke  me 
up." 


510  The  Cat's  Pilgrimage. 

u  There  may  be  truth  in  what  you  say,"  said  the  Cat, 
calmly ;  "  but  I  think  your  view  is  limited.  If  you  listened 
like  me  you  would  hear  the  men  say  it  was  all  made  for 
them,  and  you  and  I  were  made  to  amuse  them." 

"  They  don't  dare  to  say  so,"  said  the  Dog. 

"  They  do,  indeed,"  said  the  Cat.  "  I  hear  many  things 
which  you  lose  by  sleeping  so  much.  They  think  I  am 
asleep,  and  so  they  are  not  afraid  to  talk  before  me  ;  but 
my  ears  are  open  when  my  eyes  are  shut." 

"  You  surprise  me,"  said  the  Dog.  "  I  never  listen  to 
them,  except  when  I  take  notice  of  them,  and  then  they 
never  talk  of  any  thing  except  of  me." 

"  I  could  tell  you  a  thing  or  two  about  yourself  which 
you  don't  know,"  said  the  Cat.  "  You  have  never  heard,  I 
dare  say,  that  once  upon  a  time  your  fathers  lived  in  a 
temple,  and  that  people  prayed  to  them." 

"  Prayed  !  what  is  that  ?  " 

"  Why,  they  went  on  their  knees  to  you  to  ask  you  to 
give  them  good  things,  just  as  you  stand  on  your  toes  to 
them  now  to  ask  for  your  breakfast.  You  don't  know  either 
that  you  have  got  one  of  those  bright  things  we  see  up  in 
the  air  at  night  called  after  you." 

"  "Well,  it  is  just  what  I  said,"  answered  the  Dog.  "  I 
told  you  it  was  all  made  for  us.  They  never  did  any  thing 
of  that  sort  for  you  ?  " 

"  Did  n't  they  ?  Why,  there  was  a  whole  city  where  the 
people  did  nothing  else,  and  as  soon  as  we  got  stiff  and 
could  n't  move  about  any  more,  instead  of  being  put  under 
the  ground  like  poor  Tom,  we  used  to  be  stuffed  full  of  all 
sorts  of  nice  things,  and  kept  better  than  we  were  when  we 
were  alive." 

"  You  are  a  very  wise  Cat,"  answered  her  companion  ; 
"  but  what  good  is  it  knowing  all  this  ?  " 

"  Why,  don't  you  see,"  said  she,  "  they  don't  do  it  any 
more.  We  are  going  down  in  the  world,  we  are,  and  that 
is  why  living  on  in  this  way  is  such  an  unsatisfactory 


Tlie   Cat's  Pilgrimage.  511 

sort  of  thing.  I  don't  mean  to  complain  for  myself,  and 
you  need  n't,  Dog ;  we  have  a  quiet  life  of  it ;  but  a  quiet 
life  is  not  the  thing,  and  if  there  is  nothing  to  be  done  ex- 
cept sleep  and  eat,  and  eat  and  sleep,  why,  as  I  said  before, 
I  don't  ^  see  the  use  of  it.  There  is  something  more  in  it 
than  that ;  there  was  once,  and  there  will  be  again,  and  I 
sha'n't  be  happy  till  I  find  it  out.  It  is  a  shame,  Dog,  I 
say.  The  men  have  been  here  only  a  few  thousand  years, 
and  we  —  why,  we  have  been  here  hundreds  of  thousands ; 
if  we  are  older,  we  ought  to  be  wiser,  I  '11  go  and  ask  the 
creatures  in  the  woods." 

"  You  '11  learn  more  from  the  men,"  said  the  Dog. 

"  They  are  stupid,  and  they  don't  know  what  I  say  to 
them  ;  besides,  they  are  so  conceited  they  care  for  nothing 
except  themselves.  No,  I  shall  try  what  I  can  do  in  the 
woods.  I  'd  as  soon  go  after  poor  Tom  as  stay  living  any- 
longer  like  this." 

"  And  where  is  poor  Tom  ?  "  yawned  the  Dog. 

"  That  is  just  one  of  the  things  I  want  to  know,"  an- 
swered she.  "  Poor  Tom  is  lying  under  the  yard,  or  the 
skin  of  him,  but  whether  that  is  the  whole  I  don't  feel  so 
sure.  They  did  n't  think  so  in  the  city  I  told  you  about. 
It  is  a  beautiful  day,  Dog ;  you  won't  take  a  trot  out  with 
me  ?  "  she  added,  wistfully. 

«  Who  —  I  ?  "  said  the  Dog.     «  Not  quite." 

"  You  may  get  so  wise,"  said  she. 

"  Wisdom  is  good,"  said  the  Dog ;  "  but  so  is  the  hearth- 
rug, thank  you ! " 

"  But  you  may  be  free,"  said  she. 

"  I  shall  have  to  hunt  for  my  own  dinner,"  said  he. 

"  But,  Dog,  they  may  pray  to  you  again,"  said  she. 

"  But  I  sha'n't  have  a  softer  mat  to  sleep  upon,  Cat,  and 
as  I  am  rather  delicate,  that  is  a  consideration." 


512  The  Cat's  Pilgrimage. 


PART   II. 

So  the  Dog  would  n't  go,  and  the  Cat  set  off  by  herself 
to  learn  how  to  be  happy,  and  to  be  all  that  a  Cat  could  be. 
It  was  a  fine  sunny  morning.  She  determined  to  try  the 
meadow  first,  and,  after  an  hour  or  two,  if  she  had  not  suc- 
ceeded, then  to  go  off  to  the  wood.  A  Blackbird  was  piping 
away  on  a  thornbush  as  if  his  heart  was  running  over  with 
happiness.  The  Cat  had  breakfasted,  and  so  was  able  to  lis- 
ten without  any  mixture  of  feeling.  She  did  n't  sneak.  She 
walked  boldly  up  under  the  bush,  and  the  bird,  seeing  she 
had  no  bad  purpose,  sat  still  and  sung  on. 

"  Good  morning,  Blackbird ;  you  seem  to  be  enjoying 
yourself  this  fine  day." 

"  Good  morning,  Cat." 

"  Blackbird,  it  is  an  odd  question,  perhaps,  —  What 
ought  one  to  do  to  be  as  happy  as  you  ?  " 

«  Do  your  duty,  Cat." 

"  But  what  is  my  duty,  Blackbird  ?  " 

"  Take  care  of  your  little  ones,  Cat." 

"  I  hav'n't  any,"  said  she. 

"  Then  sing  to  your  mate,"  said  the  bird. 

"  Tom  is  dead,"  said  she. 

"  Poor  Cat ! "  said  the  bird.  "  Then  sing  over  his  grave. 
If  your  song  is  sad,  you  will  find  your  heart  grow  lighter 
for  it." 

"  Mercy ! "  thought  the  Cat.  « I  could  do  a  little  sing- 
ing with  a  living  lover,  but  I  never  heard  of  singing  for  a 
dead  one.  But  you  see,  bird,  it  is  n't  Cats'  nature.  When 
I  am  cross,  I  mew.  When  I  am  pleased,  I  purr ;  but  I 
must  be  pleased  first.  I  can't  purr  myself  into  happiness." 

"  I  am  afraid  there  is  something  the  matter  with  your 
heart,  my  Cat.  It  wants  warming  ;  good-by." 

The  Blackbird  flew  away.  The  Cat  looked  sadly  after 
him.  "  He  thinks  I  am  like  him  ;  and  he  does  n't  know 


The  Cat's  Pilgrimage.  513 

that  a  Cat  is  a  Cat,"  said  she.  "  As  it  happens  »ow,  I  feel 
a  great  deal  for  a  Cat.  If  I  had  n't  got  a  heart  I  should  n't 
be  unhappy.  I  won't  be  angry.  "  I  '11  try  that  great  fat 
fellow." 

The  Ox  lay  placidly  chewing,  with  content  beaming  out 
of  his  eyes  and  playing  on  his  mouth. 

"  Ox,"  she  said,  "  what  is  the  way  to  be  happy  ?  " 

"  Do  your  duty,"  said  the  Ox. 

"  Bother,"  said  the  Cat ;  "  duty  again  !  What  is  it, 
Ox?" 

"  Get  your  dinner,"  said  the  Ox. 

"  But  it  is  got  for  me,  Ox  ;  and  I  have  nothing  to  do  but 
to  eat  it." 

"  Well,  eat  it,  then,  like  me." 

"  So  I  do  ;  but  I  am  not  happy  for  all  that." 

"  Then  you  are  a  very  wicked,  ungrateful  Cat." 

The  Ox  munched  away.  A  Bee  buzzed  into  a  buttercup 
under  the  Cat's  nose. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  the  Cat ;  "  it  is  n't  curiosity  — 
what  are  you  doing  ?  " 

"  Doing  my  duty ;  don't  stop  me,  Cat," 

"  But,  Bee,  what  is  your  duty  ?  " 

"  Making  honey,"  said  the  Bee. 

"  I  wish  I  could  make  honey,"  sighed  the  Cat. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  can't  ?  "  said  the  Bee.  "  How 
stupid  you  must  be.  What  do  you  do,  then  ?  " 

"  I  do  nothing,  Bee.     I  can't  get  any  thing  to  do." 

"  You  won't  get  any  thing  to  do,  you  mean,  you  lazy  Cat ! 
You  are  a  good-for-nothing  drone.  Do  you  know  what  we 
do  to  our  drones  J*  We  kill  them ;  and  that  is  all  they  are 
fit  for.  Good  morning  to  you." 

"  Well,  I  am  sure,"  said  the  Cat,  "  they  are  treating  me 
civilly ;  I  had  better  have  stopped  at  home  at  this  rate. 
Stroke  my  whiskers  !  Heartless  !  wicked  !  good-for-noth- 
ing !  stupid !  and  only  fit  to  be  killed  !  This  is  a  pleasant 
beginning,  anyhow.  I  must  look  for  some  wiser  creatures 

33 


514  The  Cat's  Pilgrimage. 

than  these  are.    What  shall  I  do  ?    I  know.   I  know  where 
I  will  go." 

It  was  in  the  middle  of  the  wood.  The  bush  was  very 
dark,  but  she  found  him  by  his  wonderful  eye.  Presently, 
as  she  got  used  to  the  light,  she  distinguished  a  sloping  roll 
of  feathers,  a  rounded  breast,  surmounted  by  a  round  head, 
set  close  to  the  body,  without  an  inch  of  a  neck  intervening. 
"  How  wise  he  looks  ! "  she  said ;  "  what  a  brain  !  what  a 
forehead !  His  head  is  not  long,  but  what  an  expanse  !  and 
what  a  depth  of  earnestness  !  The  Owl  sloped  his  head  a 
little  on  one  side ;  the  Cat  slanted  hers  upon  the  other. 
The  Owl  set  it  straight  again,  the  Cat  did  the  same.  They 
stood  looking  in  this  way  for  some  minutes ;  at  last,  in  a 
whispering  voice,  the  Owl  said,  "  What  are  you  who  pre- 
sume to  look  into  my  repose  ?  Pass  on  upon  your  way, 
and  carry  elsewhere  those  prying  eyes." 

"  O  wonderful  Owl,"  said  the  Cat,  "  you  are  wise,  and  I 
want  to  be  wise ;  and  I  am  come  to  you  to  teach  me." 

A  film  floated  backwards  and  forwards  over  the  Owl's 
eyes  ;  it  was  his  way  of  showing  that  he  was  pleased. 

"  I  have  heard  in  our  school-room,"  went  on  the  Cat, 
"  that  you  sat  on  the  shoulder  of  Pallas,  and  she  told  you 
all  about  it." 

"  And  what  wo\ild  you  know,  O  my  daughter  ?  "  said  the 
Owl. 

"  Every  thing,"  said  the  Cat,  "  every  thing.  First  of  all, 
how  to  be  happy." 

"  Mice  content  you  not,  my  child,  even  as  they  content 
not  me,"  said  the  Owl.  "  It  is  good." 

"  Mice,  indeed  ! "  said  the  Cat ;  "  no,  Parlor  Cats  don't 
eat  mice.  I  have  better  than  mice,  and  BO  trouble  to  get 
it ;  but  I  want  something  more." 

"  The  body's  meat  is  provided.  You  would  now  fill 
your  soul." 

"  I  want  to  improve,"  said  the  Cat.  "  I  want  something 
to  do  1  want  to  find  out  what  the  creatures  call  my 
duty." 


The  CaCs  Pilgrimage.  515 

"  You  would  learn  how  to  employ  those  happy  hours  of 
your  leisure  —  rather  how  to  make  them  happy  by  a  wor- 
thy use.  Meditate,  O  Cat !  meditate !  meditate !  " 

"  That  is  the  very  thing,"  said  she.  "  Meditate  !  that  is 
what  I  like  above  all  things.  Only  I  want  to  know  how : 
I  want  something  to  meditate  about.  Tell  me,  Owl,  and  I 
will  bless  you  every  hour  of  the  day  as  I  sit  by  the  parlor 
fire." 

"  I  will  tell  you,"  answered  the  Owl,  "  what  I  have  been 
thinking  of  ever  since  the  moon  changed.  You  shall  take 
it  home  with  you  and  think  about  it  too  ;  and  the  next  full 
moon  you  shall  come  again  to  me ;  we  will  compare  our 
conclusions." 

«  Delightful !  delightful !  "  said  the  Cat.  "  What  is  it  ? 
I  will  try  this  minute." 

"  From  the  beginning,"  replied  the  Owl,  "  our  race  have 
been  considering  which  first  existed,  the  Owl  or  the  egg. 
The  Owl  comes  from  the  egg,  but  likewise  the  egg  from 
the  Owl." 

«  Mercy  !  "  said  the  Cat. 

"  From  sunrise  to  sunset  I  ponder  on  it,  0  Cat !  When 
I  reflect  on  the  beauty  of  the  complete  Owl,  I  think  that 
must  have  been  first,  as  the  cause  is  greater  than  the 
effect.  When  I  remember  my  own  childhood,  I  incline 
the  other  way." 

"  Well,  but  how  are  we  to  find  out  ?  "  said  the  Cat. 

"  Find  out !  "  said  the  Owl.  "  We  can  never  find  out. 
The  beauty  of  the  question  is,  that  its  solution  is  impossi- 
ble. What  would  become  of  all  our  delightful  reasonings, 
0  unwise  Cat !  if  we  were  so  unhappy  as  to  know  ?  " 

"  But  what  in  the  world  is  the  good  of  thinking  about  it, 
if  you  can't,  O  Owl?" 

"  My  child,  that  is  a  foolish  question.  It  is  good,  in  or- 
der that  the  thoughts  on  these  things  may  stimulate  won- 
der. It  is  in  wonder  that  the  Owl  is  great." 

"  Then  you  don't  know  any  thing  at  all,"  said  the  Cat. 


616  The  Catfs  Pilgrimage. 

"  What  did  you  sit  on  Pallas's  shoulder  for  ?  You  must 
have  gone  to  sleep." 

"  Your  tone  is  over-flippant,  Cat,  for  philosophy.  The 
highest  of  all  knowledge  is  to  know  that  we  know 
nothing." 

The  Cat  made  two  great  arches  with  her  hack  and  her 
tail. 

"  Bless  the  mother  that  laid  you,"  said  she.  "  You  were 
dropped  by  mistake  in  a  goose-nest.  You  won't  do.  I 
don't  know  much,  but  I  am  not  such  a  creature  as  you,  any- 
how. A  great  white  thing  !  " 

She  straightened  her  body,  stuck  her  tail  up  on  end,  and 
marched  off  with  much  dignity.  But,  though  she  respected 
herself  rather  more  than  before,  she  was  not  on  the  way  to 
the  end  of  her  difficulties.  She  tried  all  the  creatures  she 
met  without  advancing  a  step.  They  had  all  the  old  story, 
"  Do  your  duty."  But  each  had  its  own,  and  no  one  could 
tell  her  what  hers  was.  Only  one  point  they  all  agreed 
upon  —  the  duty  of  getting  their  dinner  when  they  were 
hungry.  The  day  wore  on,  and  she  began  to  think  she 
would  like  hers.  Her  meals  came  so  regularly  at  home 
thet  she  scarcely  knew  what  hunger  was ;  but  now  the 
sensation  came  over  her  very  palpably,  and  she  experi- 
enced quite  new  emotions  as  the  hares  and  rabbits  skipped 
about  her,  or  as  she  spied  a  bird  upon  a  tree.  For  a  mo- 
ment she  thought  she  would  go  back  and  eat  the  Owl  — 
he  was  the  most  useless  creature  she  had  seen ;  but  on 
second  thought  she  did  n't  fancy  he  would  be  nice :  besides 
that,  his  claws  were  sharp  and  his  beak  too.  Presently, 
however,  as  she  sauntered  down  the  path,  she  came  on  a 
little  open  patch  of  green,  in  the  middle  of  which  a  fine 
fat  Rabbit  was  sitting.  There  was  no  escape.  The  path 
ended  there,  and  the  bushes  were  so  thick  on  each  side 
that  he  could  n't  get  away  except  through  her  paws. 

"  Really,"  said  the  Cat,  "  I  don't  wish  to  be  troublesome ; 
I  would  n't  do  it  if  I  could  help  it ;  but  I  am  very  hungry, 


The  Cat's  Pilgrimage.  617 

I  am  afraid  I  must  eat  you.    It  is  very  unpleasant,  I  as* 
sure  you,  to  me  as  well  as  to  you." 

The  poor  Kabbit  begged  for  mercy. 

"  Well, "  said  she,  "  I  think  it  is  hard  ;  I  do  really  — 
and,  if  the  law  could  be  altered,  I  should  be  the  first  to 
welcome  it.  But  what  can  a  Cat  do  ?  You  eat  the  grass ; 
I  eat  you.  But,  Rabbit,  I  wish  you  would  do  me  a 
favor." 

"  Any  thing  to  save  my  life,"  said  the  Rabbit. 

"  It  is  not  exactly  that,"  said  the  Cat ;  "  but  I  have  n't 
been  used  to  killing  my  own  dinner,  and  it  is  disagreeable. 
Could  n't  you  die  ?  I  shall  hurt  you  dreadfully  if  I  kill 
you."  . 

"  Oh  ! "  said  the  Rabbit,  "  you  are  a  kind  Cat ;  I  see  it 
in  your  eyes,  and  your  whiskers  don't  curl  like  those  of  the 
cats  in  the  woods.  I  am  sure  you  will  spare  me." 

"  But,  Rabbit,  it  is  a  question  of  principle.  I  have  to  do 
my  duty ;  and  the  only  duty  I  have,  as  far  as  I  can  make 
out,  is  to  get  my  dinner." 

"  If  you  kill  me,  Cat,  to  do  your  duty,  I  sha'n't  be  able 
to  do  mine." 

It  was  a  doubtful  point,  and  the  Cat  was  new  to  casu- 
istry. "  What  is  your  duty  ?  "  said  she. 

"  I  have  seven  little  ones  at  home  —  seven  little  ones, 
and  they  will  all  die  without  me.  Pray  let  me  go." 

"What!  do  you  take  care  of  your  children?"  said  the 
Cat.  "  How  interesting !  I  should  like  to  see  that ;  take 
me." 

"  Oh  !  you  would  eat  them,  you  would,"  said  the  Rabbit. 
"  No !  better  eat  me  than  them.  No,  no." 

"  Well,  well,"  said  the  Cat,  "  I  don't  know  ;  I  suppose  I 
could  n't  answer  for  myself.  I  don't  think  I  am  right,  for 
duty  is  pleasant,  and  it  is  very  unpleasant  to  be  so  hungry ; 
but  I  suppose  you  must  go.  You  seem  a  good  Rabbit. 
Are  you  happy,  Rabbit  ?  " 

"  Happy  !  0  dear  beautiful  Cat !  if  you  spare  me  to  my 
poor  babies ! " 


618  The  Oafs  Pilgrimage. 

"  Pooh,  pooh  !  "  said  the  Cat,  peevishly ;  "  I  don't  want 
fine  speeches ;  I  meant  whether  you  thought  it  worth 
while  to  be  alive !  Of  course  you  do !  It  don't  matter. 
Go,  and  keep  out  of  my  way ;  for,  if  I  don't  get  my 
dinner,  you  may  not  get  off  another  time.  Get  along, 
Rabbit." 


PART  III. 

IT  was  a  great  day  in  the  Fox's  cave.  The  eldest  cub 
had  the  night  before  brought  home  his  first  goose,  and 
they  were  just  sitting  down  to  it  as  the  Cat  came  by. 

"Ah,  my  young  lady!  what,  you  in  the  woods?  Bad 
feeding  at  home,  eh  ?  Come  out  to  hunt  for  yourself?" 

The  goose  smelt  excellent;  the  Cat  couldn't  help  a 
wistful  look.  She  was  only  come,  she  said,  to  pay  her 
respects  to  her  wild  friends. 

"  Just  in  time,"  said  the  Fox.  "  Sit  down  and  take  a 
bit  of  dinner ;  I  see  you  want  it.  Make  room,  you  cubs ; 
place  a  seat  for  the  lady." 

"  Why,  thank  you,"  said  the  Cat,  "  yes ;  I  acknowledge 
it  is  not  unwelcome.  Pray,  don't  disturb  yourselves,  young 
Foxes.  I  am  hungry.  I  met  a  Rabbit  on  my  way  here. 
I  was  going  to  eat  him,  but  he  talked  so  prettily  I  let 
him  go." 

The  cubs  looked  up  from  their  plates,  and  burst  out 
laughing. 

"  For  shame,  young  rascals  ! "  said  their  father.  "  Where 
are  your  manners?  Mind  your  dinner,  and  don't  be 
rude." 

"  Fox,"  she  said,  when  it  was  over,  and  the  cubs  were 
gone  to  play,  "  you  are  very  clever.  The  other  creatures 
are  all  stupid."  The  Fox  bowed.  "Your  family  were 
always  clever,"  she  continued.  "  I  have  heard  about  them 


The  Cat's  Pilgrimage.  519 

in   the  books  they  use  in  our  school-room.     It  is  many 
years  since  your  ancestor  stole  the  crow's  dinner." 

"  Don't  say  stole,  Cat ;  it  is  not  pretty.  Obtained  by 
superior  ability." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,55  said  the  Cat ;  "  it  is  all  living  with 
those  men.  That  is  not  the  point.  Well,  but  I  want  to 
know  whether  you  are  any  wiser  or  any  better  than  Foxes 
were  then  ?  " 

"  Really,"  said  the  Fox,  "  I  am  what  Nature  made  me. 
I  don't  know.  I  am  proud  of  my  ancestors,  and  do  my 
best  to  keep  up  the  credit  of  the  family." 

"  Well,  but  Fox,  I  mean  do  you  improve  ?  do  I  ?  do  any 
of  you  ?  The  men  are  always  talking  about  doing  their 
duty,  and  that,  they  say,  is  the  way  to  improve,  and  to  be 
happy.  And  as  I  was  not  happy,  I  thought  that  had, 
perhaps,  something  to  do  with  it,  so  I  came  out  to  talk  to 
the  creatures.  They  also  had  the  old  chant  —  duty,  duty, 
duty ;  but  none  of  them  could  tell  me  what  mine  was,  or 
whether  I  had  any." 

The  Fox  smiled.  "Another  leaf  out  of  your  school- 
room," said  he.  "  Can't  they  tell  you  there  ?  " 

"  Indeed,"  she  said,  "  they  are  very  absurd.  They  say 
a  great  deal  about  themselves,  but  they  only  speak  disre- 
spectfully of  us.  If  such  creatures  as  they  can  do  their 
duty,  and  improve,  and  be  happy,  why  can't  we  ?  " 

«  They  say  they  do,  do  they  ?  "  said  the  Fox.  "  What 
do  they  say  of  me  ?  " 

The  Cat  hesitated. 

"  Don't  be  afraid  of  hurting  my  feelings,  Cat.  Out  with 
it" 

"  They  do  all  justice  to  your  abilities,  Fox,"  said  she ; 
"  but  your  morality,  they  say,  is  not  high.  They  say  you 
are  a  rogue." 

"  Morality ! "  said  the  Fox.  "  Very  moral  and  good  they 
are.  And  you  really  believe  all  that  ?  What  do  they  mean 
by  calling  me  a  rogue  ?  " 


520  Tlie  Cat's  Pilgrimage. 

"They  mean  you  take  whatever  you  can  get,  without 
caring  whether  it  is  just  or  not." 

"My  dear  Cat,  it  is  very  well  for  a  man,  if  he  can't 
bear  his  own  face,  to  paint  a  pretty  one  on  a  panel  and 
call  it  a  Ipoking-glass ;  but  you  don't  mean  that  it  takes 
you  in  ?  " 

"  Teach  me,"  said  the  cat     "  I  fear  I  am  weak." 

"  Who  get  justice  from  the  men  unless  they  can  force  it? 
Ask  the  sheep  that  are  cut  into  mutton.  Ask  the  horses 
that  draw  their  ploughs.  I  don't  mean  it  is  wrong  of  the 
men  to  do  as  they  do  ;  but  they  need  n't  lie  about  it." 

"  You  surprise  me,"  said  the  Cat. 

"  My  good  Cat,  there  is  but  one  law  in  the  world.  The 
weakest  goes  to  the  wall.  The  men  are  sharper-witted 
than  the  creatures,  and  so  they  get  the  better  of  them  and 
use  them.  They  may  call  it  just  if  they  like  ;  but  when  a 
tiger  eats  a  man,  I  guess  he  has  just  as  much  justice  on 
his  side  as  the  man  when  he  eats  a  sheep." 

"And  that  is  the  whole  of  it,"  said  the  Cat.  "  Well,  it  is 
very  sad.  What  do  you  do  with  yourself?  " 

"  My  duty,  to  be  sure,"  said  the  Fox  ;  "  use  my  wits  and 
enjoy  myself.  My  dear  friend,  you  and  I  are  on  the  lucky 
side.  We  eat  and  are  not  eaten." 

"  Except  by  the  hounds  now  and  then,"  said  the  Cat. 

"  Yes ;  by  brutes  that  forget  their  nature,  and  sell  their 
freedom  to  the  men,"  said  the  Fox,  bitterly.  "In  the 
mean  time  my  wits  have  kept  my  skin  whole  hitherto,  and 
I  bless  Nature  for  making  me  a  Fox  and  not  a  goose." 

"  And  are  you  happy,  Fox  ?  " 

"  Happy !  yes,  of  course.  So  would  you  be  if  you 
would  do  like  me,  and  use  your  wits.  My  good  Cat,  I 
should  be  as  miserable  as  you  if  I  found  my  geese  every 
day  at  the  cave's  mouth.  I  have  to  hunt  for  them,  lie  for 
them,  sneak  for  them,  fight  for  them ;  cheat  those  old  fat 
farmers,  and  bring  out  what  there  is  inside  me  ;  and  then 
I  am  happy  —  of  course  I  am.  And  then.  Cat,  think  of 


The  Cat's  Pilgrimage.  521 

my  feelings  as  a  father  last  night,  when  my  dear  boy  came 
home  with  the  very  young  gosling  which  was  marked  for 
the  Michaelmas  dinner !  Old  Reineke  himself  was  n't 
more  than  a  match  for  that  young  Fox  at  his  years.  You 
know  our  epic  ?  " 

"  A  little  of  it,  Fox.  They  don't  read  it  in  our  school- 
room. They  say  it  is  not  moral ;  but  I  have  heard  pieces 
of  it.  I  hope  it  is  not  all  quite  true." 

"Pack  of  stuff!  it  is  the  only  true  book  that  ever  was 
written.  If  it  is  not,  it  ought  to  be.  Why,  that  book  is 
the  law  of  the  world  —  la  carriere  aux  talents  —  and  writ- 
ing it  was  the  honestest  thing  ever  done  by  a  man.  That 
fellow  knew  a  thing  or  two,  and  was  n't  ashamed  of  himself 
when  he  did  know.  They  are  all  like  him,  too,  if  they 
would  only  say  so.  There  never  was  one  of  them  yet 
who  was  n't  more  ashamed  of  being  called  ugly  than  of 
being  called  a  rogue,  and  of  being  called  stupid  than  of 
being  called  naughty." 

"It  has  a  roguish  end,  this  life  of  yours,  if  you  keep 
clear  of  the  hounds,  Fox,"  said  the  Cat. 

"  "What !  a  rope  in  the  yard !  Well,  it  must  end  some 
day ;  and  when  the  farmer  catches  me  I  shall  be  getting 
old,  and  my  brains  will  be  taking  leave  of  me ;  so  the 
sooner  I  go  the  better,  that  I  may  disgrace  myself  the  less. 
Better  be  jolly  while  it  lasts,  than  sit  mewing  out  your  life 
and  grumbling  at  it  as  a  bore." 

"  Well,"  said  the  Cat,  "  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you. 
I  suppose  I  may  even  get  home  again.  I  shall  not  find  a 
wiser  friend  than  you,  and  perhaps  I  shall  not  find  another 
good-natured  enough  to  give  me  so  good  a  dinner.  But  it 
is  very  sad." 

"  Think  of  what  I  have  said,"  answered  the  Fox.  "  I  '11 
call  at  your  house  some  night ;  you  will  take  me  a  walk 
round  the  yard,  and  then  I  '11  show  you." 

"  Not  quite,"  thought  the  Cat,  as  she  trotted  off;  "  one 
good  turn  deserves  another,  that  is  true ;  and  you  have 


522  The  Cat's  Pilgrimage. 

given  me  a  good  dinner.  But  they  have  given  me  many 
at  home,  and  I  mean  to  take  a  few  more  of  them  ;  so  I 
think  you  must  n't  go  round  our  yard." 


PART  'IV. 

THE  next  morning,  when  the  Dog  came  down  to  break- 
fast, he  found  his  old  friend  sitting  in  her  usual  place  on 
the  hearth-rug. 

"  Oh  !  so  you  have  come  hack,"  said  he.  "  How  d  'ye  do  ? 
You  don't  look  as  if  you  had  had  a  very  pleasant  journey." 

"  I  have  learnt  something,"  said  the  Cat.  "  Knowledge 
is  never  pleasant" 

"  Then  it  is  better  to  be  without  it,"  said  the  Dog. 

"  Especially,  better  to  be  without  knowing  how  to  stand 
on  one's  hind  legs,  Dog,"  said  the  Cat ;  "  still,  you  see,  you 
are  proud  of  it ;  but  I  have  learnt  a  great  deal,  Dog. 
They  won't  worship  you  any  more,  and  it  is  better  for  you ; 
you  wouldn't  be  any  happier.  What  dH  you  do  yester- 
day ?  " 

"  Indeed,"  said  the  Dog,  "  I  hardly  remember.  I  slept 
after  you  went  away.  In  the  afternoon  I  took  a  drive  in 
the  carriage.  Then  I  had  my  dinner.  My  maid  washed 
me  and  put  me  to  bed.  There  is  the  difference  between 
you  and  me :  you  have  to  wash  yourself  and  put  yourself 
to  bed." 

"  And  you  really  don't  find  it  a  bore,  living  like  this  ? 
Would  n't  you  like  something  to  do  ?  Would  n't  you  like 
some  children  to  play  with  ?  The  Fox  seemed  to  find  it 
very  pleasant." 

"  Children,  indeed ! "  said  the  Dog,  "  when  I  have  got 
men  and  women.  Children  are  well  enough  for  foxes  and 
wild  creatures  ;  refined  dogs  know  better ;  and,  for  doing 


Tlie  CaC  s  •  Pilgrimage.  523 

—  can't  I  stand  on  my  toes  ?  can't  I  dance  ?  at  least, 
could  n't  I  before  I  was  so  fat  ?  " 

"  Ah  !  I  see  every  body  likes  what  he  was  bred  to," 
sighed  the  Cat  "  I  was  bred  to  do  nothing,  and  I  must 
like  that.  Train  the  cat  as  the  cat  should  go,  and  the  cat 
will  be  happy  and  ask  no  questions.  Never  seek  for  impos- 
sibilities, Dog.  That  is  the  secret." 

"  And  you  have  spent  a  day  in  the  woods  to  learn  that," 
said  he.  "  I  could  have  taught  you  that.  Why,  Cat,  one 
day  when  you  were  sitting  scratching  your  nose  before  the 
fire,  I  thought  you  looked  so  pretty  that  I  should  have 
liked  to  marry  you ;  but  I  knew  I  could  n't,  so  I  did  n't 
make  myself  miserable." 

The  Cat  looked  at  him  with  her  odd  green  eyes.  "I 
never  wished  to  marry  you,  Dog ;  I  should  n't  have  pre- 
sumed. But  it  was  wise  of  you  not  to  fret  about  it.  But, 
listen  to  me,  Dog  —  listen.  I  met  many  creatures  in  the 
wood,  all  sorts  of  creatures,  beasts  and  birds.  They  were 
all  happy ;  they  did  n't  find  it  a  bore.  They  went  about 
their  work,  and  did  it,  and  enjoyed  it,  and  yet  none  of 
them  had  the  same  story  to  tell.  Some  did  one  thing, 
some  another ;  and,  except  the  Fox,  each  had  got  a  sort 
of  notion  of  doing  its  duty.  The  Fox  was  a  rogue ;  he 
said  he  was  ;  but  yet  he  was  not  unhappy.  His  conscience 
never  troubled  him.  Your  work  is  standing  on  your  toes, 
and  you  are  happy.  I  have  none,  and  that  is  why  I  am 
unhappy.  When  I  came  to  think  about  it,  I  found  every 
creature  out  in  the  wood  had  to  get  its  own  living.  I  tried 
to  get  mine,  but  I  did  n't  like  it,  because  I  was  n't  used  to  it ; 
and  as  for  knowing,  the  Fox,  who  did  n't  care  to  know  any 
thing  except  how  to  cheat  greater  fools  than  himself,  was 
the  cleverest  fellow  I  came  across.  Oh !  the  Owl,  Dog  -r- 
you  should  have  heard  the  Owl.  But  I  came  to  this,  that 
it  was  no  use  trying  to  know,  and  the  only  way  to  be  jolly 
was  to  go  about  one's  own  business  like  a  decent  Cat. 
Cats'  business  seems  to  be  killing  rabbits  and  such-like ; 


524  The  Cat's  Pilgrimage. 

and  it  is  not  the  pleasantest  possible ;  so  the  sooner  one  is 
bred  to  it  the  better.  As  for  me,  that  have  been  bred  to 
do  nothing,  why,  as  I  said  before,  I  must  try  to  like  that ; 
but  I  consider  myself  an  unfortunate  Cat." 

"  So  don't  I  consider  myself  an  unfortunate  Dog,"  said 
her  companion. 

"  Very  likely  you  do  not,"  said  the  Cat. 

By  this  time  their  breakfast  was  come  in.  The  Cat  ate 
hers,  the  Dog  did  penance  for  his ;  and  if  one  might  judge 
by  the  purring  on  the  hearth-rug,  the  Cat,  if  not  the  hap- 
piest of  the  two,  at  least  was  not  exceedingly  miserable. 


FABLES. 


I.  —  THE  LIONS  AND  THE  OXEN. 

ONCE  upon  a  time  a  number  of  cattle  came  out  of  the 
desert  to  settle  in  the  broad  meadows  by  a  river.  They 
were  poor  and  wretched,  and  they  found  it  a  pleasant  ex- 
change, —  except  for  a  number  of  lions,  who  lived  in  the 
mountains  near,  and  who  claimed  a  right,  in  consideration 
of  permitting  the  cattle  to  remain,  to  eat  as  many  as  they 
wanted  among  them.  The  cattle  submitted,  partly  because 
they  were  too  weak  to  help  it,  partly  because  the  lions  said 
it  was  the  will  of  Jupiter ;  and  the  cattle  believed  them. 
And  so  they  went  on  for  many  ages,  till  at  last,  from  better 
feeding,  the  cattle  grew  larger  and  stronger,  and  multiplied 
into  great  numbers;  and  at  the  same  time,  from  other 
causes,  the  lions  had  much  diminished :  they  were  fewer 
smaller,  and  meaner-looking  than  they  had  been ;  and  ex- 
cept in  their  own  opinion  of  themselves,  and  in  their  appe- 
tites, which  were  more  enormous  than  ever,  there  was 
nothing  of  the  old  lion  left  in  them. 

One  day  a  large  Ox  was  quietly  grazing,  when  one  of 
these  lions  came  up,  and  desired  the  Ox  to  lie  down,  for  he 
wanted  to  eat  him.  The  Ox  raised  his  head,  and  gravely 
protested  ;  the  Lion  growled  ;  the  Ox  was  mild,  yet  firm. 
The  Lion  insisted  upon  his  legal  right,  and  they  agreed  to 
refer  the  matter  to  Minos. 

When  they  came  into  court,  the  Lion  accused  the  Ox  of 
having  broken  the  laws  of  the  beasts.  The  Lion  was  king, 
and  the  others  were  bound  to  obey.  Prescriptive  usage 


526  Fables. 

was  clearly  on  the  Lion's  side.  Minos  called  on  the  Ox  for 
his  defense. 

The  Ox  said  that,  without  consent  of  his  own  being 
asked,  he  had  been  born  into  the  meadow.  He  did  not  con- 
sider himself  much  of  a  beast,  but,  such  as  he  was,  he  was 
very  happy,  and  gave  Jupiter  thanks.  Now,  if  the  Lion 
could  show  that  the  existence  of  lions  was  of  more  impor- 
tance than  that  of  oxen  in  the  eyes  of  Jupiter,  he  had 
nothing  more  to  say ;  he  was  ready  to  sacrifice  himself. 
But  this  Lion  had  already  eaten  a  thousand  oxen.  Lions' 
appetites  were  so  insatiable  that  he  was  forced  to  ask 
whether  they  were  really  worth  what  was  done  for  them, — 
whether  the  life  of  one  lion  was  so  noble  that  the  lives  of 
thousands  of  oxen  were  not  equal  to  it?  He  was  ready  to 
own  that  lions  had  always  eaten  oxen,  but  lions  when  they 
first  came  to  the  meadow  were  a  different  sort  of  creature, 
and  they  themselves,  too  (and  the  Ox  looked  complacently 
at  himself),  had  improved  since  that  time.  Judging  by 
appearances,  though  they  might  be  fallacious,  he  himself 
was  quite  as  good  a  beast  as  the  Lion.  If  the  lions  would 
lead  lives  more  noble  than  oxen  could  live,  once  more  he 
would  not  complain.  As  it  was,  he  submitted  that  the  cost 
was  too  great. 

Then  the  Lion  put  on  a  grand  face  and  tried  to  roar ; 
but  when  he  opened  his  mouth  he  disclosed  a  jaw  so 
drearily  furnished  that  Minos  laughed,  and  told  the  Ox  that 
it  was  his  own  fault  if  he  let  himself  be  eaten  by  such  a 
beast  as  that  If  he  persisted  in  declining,  he  did  not  think 
the  Lion  would  force  him. 


II.  —  THE  FARMER  AND  THE  Fox. 

A  FARMER,  whose  poultry-yard  had  suffered  severely  from 
the  foxes,  succeeded   at  last  in  catching  one  in   a  trap. 


Fables.  527 

u  Ah,  you  rascal !  "  said  he,  as  he  saw  him  struggling,  "  1 11- 
teach  you  to  steal  my  fat  geese  !  —  you  shall  hang  on  the 
tree  yonder,  and  your  brothers  shall  see  what  comes  of 
thieving  !  "  The  Farmer  was  twisting  a  halter  to  do  what 
he  threatened,  when  the  Fox,  whose  tongue  had  helped  him 
in  hard  pinches  before,  thought  there  could  "be  no  harm  in 
trying  whether  it  might  not  do  him  one  more  good  turn. 

"  You  will  hang  me,"  he  said,  "  to  frighten  by  brother 
foxes.  On  the  word  of  a  fox  they  won't  care  a  rabbit-skin 
for  it ;  they  '11  come  and  look  at  me  ;  but  you  may  depend 
upon  it,  they  will  dine  at  your  expense  before  they  go  home 
again  !  " 

"Then  I  shall  hang  you  for  yourself,  as  a  rogue  and  a 
rascal,"  said  the  Farmer. 

"  I  am  only  what  Nature,  or  whatever  you  call  the  thing, 
chose  to  make  me,"  the  Fox  answered.  "  I  did  n't  make 
myself." 

"  You  stole  my  geese,"  said  the  man. 

"  Why  did  Nature  make  me  like  geese,  then  ?  "  said  the 
Fox.  "  Live  and  let  live ;  give  me  my  share,  and  I  won't 
touch  yours  :  but  you  keep  them  all  to  yourself." 

"  I  don't  understand  your  fine  talk,"  answered  the 
Farmer ;  "  but  I  know  that  you  are  a  thief,  and  that  you 
deserve  to  be  hanged." 

His  head  is  too  thick  to  let  me  catch  him  so,  thought  the 
Fox  ;  I  wonder  if  his  heart  is  any  softer  !  "  You  are  taking 
away  the  life  of  a  fellow-creature,"  he  said ;  "  that 's  a  re- 
sponsibility —  it  is  a  curious  thing  that  life,  and  who  knows 
what  comes  after  it  ?  You  say  I  am  a  rogue  —  I  say  I  am 
not ;  but  at  any  rate  I  ought  not  to  be  hanged  —  for  if  I 
am  not,  I  don't  deserve  it ;  and  if  I  am,  you  should  give 
me  time  to  repent !  "  I  have  him  now,  thought  the  Fox ; 
let  him  get  out  if  he  can. 

"  Why,  what  would  you  have  me  do  with  you  ?  "  said  the 
man. 

"  My  notion  is  that  you  should  let  me  go,  and  give  me  a 


528  Fables. 

lamb,  or  goose  or  two,  every  month,  and  then  I  could  live 
without  stealing ;  but  perhaps  you  know  better  than  me, 
and  I  am  a  rogue  ;  my  education  may  have  been  neglected ; 
you  should  shut  me  up,  and  take  care  of  me,  and  teach 
me.  Who  knows  but  in  the  end  I  may  turn  into  a  dog  ?  " 

"  Very  pretty,"  said  the  Farmer  ;  "  we  have  clogs  enough, 
and  more,  too,  than  we  can  take  care  of,  without  you.  No, 
no,  Master  Fox,  I  have  caught  you,  and  you  shall  swing, 
whatever  is  the  logic  of  it.  There  will  be  one  rogue  less 
in  the  world,  anyhow." 

"  It  is  mere  hate  and  unchristian  vengeance,"  said  the 
Fox. 

"  No,  friend,"  the  Farmer  answered ;  "  I  don't  hate  you, 
and  I  don't  want  to  revenge  myself  on  you  ;  but  you  and  I 
can't  get  on  together,  and  I  think  I  am  of  more  importance 
than  you.  If  nettles  and  thistles  grow  in  my  cabbage- 
garden,  I  don't  try  to  persuade  them  to  grow  into  cab- 
bages. I  just  dig  them  up.  I  don't  hate  them ;  but  I 
feel  somehow  that  they  must  n't  hinder  me  with  my  cab- 
bages, and  that  I  must  put  them  away ;  and  so,  my  poor 
friend,  I  am  sorry  for  you,  but  I  am  afraid  you  must 
swing." 


PARABLE  OF  THE  BREAD-FRUIT  TREE. 


IT  was  after  one  of  those  heavy  convulsions  which  have 
divided  era  from  era,  and  left  mankind  to  start  again  from 
the  beginning,  that  a  number  of  brave  men  gathered  to- 
gether to  raise  anew  from  the  ground  a  fresh  green  home 
for  themselves.  The  rest  of  the  surviving  race  were  shel- 
tering themselves  amidst  the  old  ruins,  or  in  the  caves  on 
the  mountains,  feeding  on  husks  and  shells  ;  but  these  men 
with  clear  heads  and  brave  hearts  ploughed  and  harrowed 
the  earth,  and  planted  seeds,  and  watered  them,  and 
watched  them ;  and  the  seeds  grew  and  shot  up  with  the 
spring,  but  one  was  larger  and  fairer  than  the  rest,  and  the 
other  plants  seemed  to  know  it,  for  they  crawled  along  till 
they  reached  the  large  one ;  and  they  gathered  round  it, 
and  clung  to  it,  and  grew  into  it ;  and  soon  they  became 
one  great  stem,  with  branching  roots  feeding  it  as  from 
many  fountains.  Then  the  men  got  great  heart  in  them 
when  they  saw  that,  and  they  labored  more  bravely,  dig- 
ging about  it  in  the  hot  sun,  till  at  last  it  became  great  and 
mighty,  and  its  roots  went  down  into  the  heart  of  the  earth, 
and  its  branches  stretched  over  all  the  plain. 

Then  many  others  of  mankind,  when  they  saw  the  tree 
was  beautiful,  came  down  and  gathered  under  it,  and  those 
who  had  raised  it  received  them  with  open  arms,  and  they 
all  sat  under  its  shade  together,  and  gathered  its  fruits,  and 
made  their  homes  there,  rejoicing  in  its  loveliness.  And 
ages  passed  away,  and  all  that  generation  passed  away,  and 
still  the  tree  grew  stronger  and  fairer,  and  their  children's 

34 


530  Parable  of  the  Bread-fruit  Tree.. 

children  watched  it  age  afler  age,  as  it  lived  on  and  flow- 
ered and  seecled.  And  they  said  in  their  hearts,  The  tree 
is  immortal  —  it  will  never  die.  They  took  no  care  of  the 
seed ;  the  scent  of  the  flowers  and  the  taste  of  the  sweet 
fruit  was  all  they  thought  of;  and  the  winds  of  heaven,  and 
the  wild  birds,  and  the  beasts  of  the  field  caught  the  stray 
fruits  and  seed-dust,  and  bore  the  seed  away,  and  scattered 
it  in  far-off  soils. 

And  by  and  by,  at  a  great,  great  age,  the  tree  at  last  be 
gan  to  cease  to  grow,  and  then  to  faint  and  droop  :  its 
leaves  were  not  so  thick,  its  flowers  were  not  so  fragrant ; 
and  from  time  to  time  the  night  winds,  which  before  had 
passed  away,  and  had  been  never  heard,  came  moaning  and 
sighing  among  the  branches.  And  the  men  for  a  while 
doubted  and  denied  —  they  thought  it  was  the  accident  of 
the  seasons ;  and  then  a  branch  fell,  and  they  said  it  was  a 
storm,  and  such  a  storm  as  came  but  once  in  a  thousand 
years.  At  last  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  leaves 
were  thin  and  sear  and  scanty  —  that  the  sun  shone 
through  them  —  that  the  fruit  was  tasteless.  But  the  gen- 
eration was  gone  away  which  had  known  the  tree  in  its 
beauty,  and  so  men  said  it  was  always  so  —  its  fruits  were 
never  better  —  its  foliage  never  was  thicker. 

So  things  went  on,  and  from  time  to  time  strangers 
would  come  among  them,  and  would  say,  Why  are  you  sit- 
ting here  under  the  old  tree  ?  there  are  young  trees  grown 
of  the  seed  of  this  tree,  far  away,  more  beautiful  than  it 
ever  was ;  see,  we  have  brought  you  leaves  and  flowers  to 
show  you.  But  the  men  would  not  listen.  They  were 
angry,  and  some  they  drove  away,  and  some  they  killed, 
and  poured  their  blood  round  the  roots  of  the  tree,  saying, 
They  have  spoken  evil  of  our  tree ;  let  them  feed  it  now 
with  their  blood.  At  last  some  of  their  own  wriser  ones 
brought  out  specimens  of  the  old  fruits,  which  had  been 
laid  up  to  be  preserved,  and  compared  them  with  the  pres- 
ent bearuig,  and  they  saw  that  the  tree  was  "not  as  it  had 


Parable  of  the  Bread-fruit  Tree.  531 

been ;  and  such  of  them  as  were  good  men  reproached 
themselves,  and  said  it  was  their  own  fault.  They  had 
not  watered  it ;  they  had  forgotten  to  manure  it.  So,  like 
their  first  fathers,  they  labored  with  might  and  main,  and 
for  a  while  it  seemed  as  if  they  might  succeed,  and  for  a 
few  years  branches,  which  were  almost  dead  when  the 
spring  came  round,  put  out  some  young  green  shoots 
again.  But  it  was  only  for  a  few  years  ;  there  Mras  not 
enough  of  living  energy  in  the  tree.  Half  the  labor  which 
was  wasted  on  it  would  have  raised  another  nobler  one  far 
away.  So  the  men  grew  soon  weary,  and  looked  for  a 
shorter  way:  and  some  gathered  up  the  leaves  and  shoots 
which  the  strangers  had  brought,  and  grafted  them  on,  if 
perhaps  they  might  grow  ;  but  they  could  not  grow  on  a 
dying  stock,  and  they,  too,  soon  drooped  and  became  as  the 
rest.  And  others  said,  Come,  let  us  tie  the  preserved  fruits 
on  again  ;  perhaps  they  will  join  again  to  the  stem,  and  give 
it  back  its  life.  But  there  were  not  enough,  for  only  a  few 
had  been  preserved  ;  so  they  took  painted  paper  and  wax 
and  clay,  and  cut  sham  leaves  and  fruits  of  the  old  pattern, 
which  for  a  time  looked  bright  and  gay,  and  the  world, 
who  did  not  know  what  had  been  done,  said,  —  See,  the 
tree  is  immortal :  it  is  green  again.  Then  some  believed, 
but  mauy  saw  that  it  was  a  sham,  and  liking  better  to  bear 
the  sky  and  sun,  without  any  shade  at  all,  than  to  live  in  a 
lie,  and  call  painted  paper  leaves  and  flowers,  they  passed 
out  in  search  of  other  homes.  But  the  larger  number 
stayed  behind ;  they  had  lived  so  long  in  falsehood  that 
they  had  forgotten  there  was  any  such  thing  as  truth  at  all ; 
the  tree  had  clone  very  well  for  them  —  it  would  do  very 
well  for  their  children.  And  if  their  children,  as  they  grew 
up,  did  now  and  then  happen  to  open  their  eyes  and  see 
how  it  really  was,  they  learned  from  their  fathers  to  hold 
their  tongues  about  it.  If  the  little  ones  and  the  weak 
ones  believed,  it  answered  all  purposes,  and  change  was 
inconvenient.  They  might  smile  to  themselves  at  the 


532  Parable  of  the  Bread-Fruit  Tree. 

folly  which  they  countenanced,  but  they. were  discreet,  and 
they  would  not  expose  it.  This  is  the  state  of  the  tree, 
and  of  the  men  who  are  under  it  at  this  present  time  :  — 
they  say  it  still  does  very  well.  Perhaps  it  does  —  but, 
stem  and  boughs  and  paper  leaves,  it  is  dry  for  the  burn- 
ing, and  if  the  lightning  touches  it,  those  who  sit  beneath 
will  suffer. 


COMPENSATION. 


ONE  day  an  Antelope  was  lying  with  her  fawn  at  the  foot 
of  the  flowering  Mimosa.  The  weather  was  intensely  sultry, 
and  a  Dove,  who  had  sought  shelter  from  the  heat  among 
the  leaves,  was  cooing  above  her  head. 

"  Happy  bird !  "  said  the  Antelope.  "  Happy  bird  !  to 
whom  the  air  is  given  for  an  inheritance,  and  whose  flight 
is  swifter  than  the  wind.  At  your  will  you  alight  upon  the 
ground,  at  your  will  you  sweep  into  the  sky,  and  fly  races 
with  the  driving  clouds  ;  while  I,  poor  I,  am  bound  a  pris- 
oner to  this  miserable  earth,  and  wear  out  my  pitiable  life 
crawling  to  and  fro  upon  its  surface." 

Then  the  Dove  answered,  "  It  is  sweet  to  sail  along  the 
sky,  to  fly  from  land  to  land,  and  coo  among  the  valleys  ; 
but,  Antelope,  when  I  have  sat  above  amidst  the  branches 
and  watched  your  little  one  close  its  tiny  lips  upon  your 
breast,  and  feed  its  life  on  yours,  I  have  felt  that  I  could 
strip  off  my  wings,  lay  down  my  plumage,  and  remain  all 
my  life  upon  the  ground  only  once  to  know  such  blessed 
enjoyment." 

The  breeze  sighed  among  the  boughs  of  the  Mimosa, 
and  a  voice  came  trembling  out  of  the  rustling  leaves  :  "  If 
the  Antelope  mourns  her  destiny,  what  should  the  Mimosa 
do  ?  The  Antelope  is  the  swiftest  among  the  animals.  It 
rises  in  the  morning ;  the  ground  flies  under  its  feet  —  in 
the  evening  it  is  a  hundred  miles  away.  The  Mimosa  is 
feeding  its  old  age  on  the  same  soil  which  quickened  its 
seed-cell  into  activity.  The  seasons  roll  by  me  and  leave 


534  Compensation. 

me  in  the  old  place.  The  winds  sway  among  inj  branches, 
as  if  they  longed  to  bear  me  away  with  them,  but  they  pass 
on  and  leave  me  behind.  The  wild  birds  come  and  go. 
The  flocks  move  by  me  in  the  evening  on  their  way  to  the 
pleasant  waters.  I  can  never  move.  My  cradle  must  be 
niy  grave." 

Then  from  below,  at  the  root  of  the  tree,  came  a  voice 
which  neither  bird,  nor  antelope,  nor  tree  had  ever  heard, 
as  a  Rock  Crystal  from  its  prison  in  the  limestone  followed 
on  the  words  of  the  Mimosa. 

"  Are  ye  all  unhappy  ?"  it  said.  "  If  ye  are,  then  what 
am  I  ?  Ye  all  have  life.  You  !  O  Mimosa,  you  !  whose  fair 
flowers  j-ear  by  year  come  again  to  you,  ever  young,  and 
fresh,  and  beautiful  —  you  who  can  drink  the  rain  with 
your  leaves,  who  can  wanton  with  the  summer  breeze,  and 
open  your  breast  to  give  a  home  to  the  wild  birds,  look  at 
me  and  be  ashamed.  I  only  am  truly  wretched." 

"  Alas  !  "  said  the  Mimosa,  "  we  have  life,  which  you  have 
not,  it  is  true.  We  have  also  what  you  have  not,  its  shadow 
—  death.  My  beautiful  children,  which  year  by  year  I 
bring  out  into  being,  expand  in  their  loveliness  only  to  die. 
Where  they  are  gone  I  too  shall  soon  follow,  while  you 
will  flash  in  the  light  of  the  last  sun  which  rises  upon  the 
earth." 


THE    END. 


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